Oh behalf of the cool kids everywhere, Kyle puts forward London Calling as the best Clash album.
Well.
London Calling is a great album, without question: the title track is an almost perfect song. “Rudie Can’t Fail” — if Bill de Blasio missed an opportunity with Sandinista!, then another New York mayor missed an even bigger opportunity there — always makes me smile. “Spanish Bombs,” and “The Guns of Brixton” are great songs.
As for the rest of the album . . . “Brand New Cadillac?” “Lost in the Supermarket”? Not actually great stuff. “The Card Cheat”? “I’m Not Down?” Things get a little slow there on sides three and four.
Spare a kind thought for Combat Rock — you know, the Clash album that people actually listened to. It’s got the two big hits: “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” and “Rock the Casbah,” the former featuring some illiterate but somehow perfect Spanish and the voice of the great Joe Ely, the latter featuring a Dukes of Hazard digital watch (it plays “Dixie”) that accidentally went off during recording.
It also has the Clash’s masterpiece, “Straight to Hell,” which went on to have a second life as the foundation of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes.”
Allen Ginsberg’s cracked contribution to “Ghetto Defendant” is by itself worth the price of the download. And “Know Your Rights” is probably the punkest of the Clash’s songs.
This goes against my most deeply held beliefs, but: Just because people like it doesn’t mean it isn’t good.