London Calling – The Clash

I once heard London Calling described as the one that The Clash put out after they learned how to play their instruments. I don’t know about that but I will say that this album is absolutely perfect in every way. Every song is great, it encompasses so many styles of music and mixes them together flawlessly. It never suffers from the “sameness syndrome” where you can’t really tell the songs apart. They are all memorable and filled with just great moments that transcend a pigeonholed genre of “Punk” that is usually assigned to The Clash. It is so much more than that musically and lyrically.

Even the album cover is a brilliant nod to Elvis Presley’s debut album with the color and placement of the lettering. I always saw the photo of Paul Simonon smashing his bass as symbolic of them breaking the concept of what we think of as rock and roll – they are redefining music as we know it with London Calling.

This is easily a top 10 album for me. On my last.fm stats it’s ranked at #5 in terms of overall songs played from it but I think if I spent some more time cleaning up and consolidating the scrobbles (yes autocorrect, I meant scrobbles, not scribbles!) from the various reissues and deluxe versions it would eek out a higher spot.

I was asked to create playlists for various birthday parties (mom’s 70th and dad’s 80th) and I absolutely, with no regrets, added “Lost in the Supermarket” to each of them. I mean, “I wasn’t born so much as I fell out” seems like a perfect lyric for the occasion.

As I was listening last night and thinking of what song to share with this I would think I had one but then I’d look at the upcoming tracks and find something else equally as worthy. London Calling is just that good. It is essential for every collection and deserves every bit of acclaim it has ever received.

I ended up choosing “The Card Cheat” because it’s such a great song and so unusual, and the lyrics are stunning, and the vocals are so expressive and emotional and…

To learn more about the 1001 Albums Project, I first wrote about it here.