The magnificent 139
October 14, 2017 3:08 PM   Subscribe

Bill Wyman (no, the other one) ranks every song the Clash ever recorded. I am happy to report that #139 is "We Are the Clash," off Cut the Crap. I'm pretty sure we can all agree on that, at least.
posted by scratch (81 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
He's got most of Give 'Em Enough Rope too low, but that's not surprising.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:17 PM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


I appreciate how it begins Cut the Crap, Cut the Crap, Cut the Crap...
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:20 PM on October 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm clicking in now, but "Stay Free" better bloody well be in the top 5.
posted by humboldt32 at 3:36 PM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


train in vain is the only acceptable choice for number one, don’t @ me.
posted by JimBennett at 3:51 PM on October 14, 2017 [9 favorites]


I'm clicking in now, but "Stay Free" better bloody well be in the top 5.
It's not, although it is in the top 10. "Hitsville UK" is in the top 5, which is bizarre. Also, this guy likes Combat Rock a lot more than I do, and you know that thing about how everyone agrees that Sandinista! should be a single album, but nobody agrees what would be on it? He and I would have really different Sandinista! single albums.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 3:53 PM on October 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


Well he got #1 correct!
posted by Lyme Drop at 3:54 PM on October 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


I love Sandinista in all its spliffed-out glory, and before I dive into this I will ofer my hot take that Side Five is the best side (although, yeah, Mensforth Hill is filler).
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:04 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Rock the Casbah and Should I Stay are WAY too high up, and Spanish Bombs is way too low.
posted by rhizome at 4:05 PM on October 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


And yeah, the reviewer obviously likes their "nice" songs, the poppier and the reggae'er.
posted by rhizome at 4:06 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


You don't have to sing anything off of Cut the Crap.


Signed, Everyone
posted by alex_skazat at 4:21 PM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


Clampdown and Radio Clash are too low. Also, scrolling through the list has reminded me of this band's supreme greatness. RIP Joe.
posted by davebush at 4:24 PM on October 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


> You don't have to sing anything off of Cut the Crap.
Signed, Everyone


...except for The corpse in the library, who loves "This is England."
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:25 PM on October 14, 2017 [8 favorites]


I do love Straight to Hell, but I will say that the cover by Phil Cody is the one I put on my Christmas Mix CDs. Yes, really, it's that much better. It starts acoustic and stripped down, but the marching drums keep it lurching along the gutter while the vocals and guitar sneer, spit, and snap and the organ (I know, right!?) soars along in a sodium vapor streetlight haze, in ways that make the original sound like a dirge (which is fine, I guess). BUt this version is the one that makes, me at least, wanna pick up a broom handle and go crack some skulls and demand a spot at the table, if not the whole fucking turkey leg.

All this is to say that The Clash were amazing, but much like some other brilliant musicians (*cough* Radiohead *cough*), they sometimes were the ones stepping on their own dicks to prove their own brilliance. Sometimes you just gotta de-Don Was-ify a bit to get the TRUTH of the thing out there.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 4:29 PM on October 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


This is almost entirely wrong, except for putting Cut The Crap at the end.

Sandinista is the best Clash album, hands down. "Something About England" is a fantastic song.

I think that this fellow does not enjoy the things about the Clash that I enjoy about the Clash.

London Calling was the first Clash album I heard and sort of a transformative experience for me - I didn't really like it much until suddenly I liked it immensely because I learned to listen in a new way. But it's the one that I almost never listen to anymore - all the songs are good rock songs, but they don't, to me, seem to have too much to say. Combat Rock isn't really that great an album, IMO, but they're trying to say a lot of stuff. On Sandinista they actually succeed.
posted by Frowner at 4:31 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Cut the Crap really not doing well here.
posted by Artw at 4:31 PM on October 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


rock the casbah deserves a top ten spot. it’s not their most ambitious song but it is among their most perfect. the writer refers to it as one of the greatest rock singles of all time and he’s not wrong.
posted by JimBennett at 4:33 PM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


In general, I agree with a most of this - every so often, though, especially in the middle of the list, I find something that I think ought to be much higher. "Lost in the Supermarket", "Capitol Radio" and London's Burning" are three I'd have moved up a dozen or so notches at least.

And then I get to "Tommy Gun" at 75 and “Koka Kola” at 123? That seems downright broken.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 4:34 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


I'm pretty partial to the weirdo tracks on Combat Rock like Ghetto Defendant.
posted by Artw at 4:36 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


> rock the casbah deserves a top ten spot

This is too specific to expect many people to go along with me on it, but if you spent your teen years in suburban Boston in the 1980s you saw that video roughly one million times a day on V-66. It's been decades and I'm still sick of it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:49 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


All you people are clearly out of your damn minds.

I think Combat Rock is one of those records that needed to gather dust for a while before everyone decided to throw it on the 'table out of sheer curiosity after X number of years, and then said, "Huh. It's really not all that bad."

Never before have I heard anyone name Sandinista as their best album. Most people seem to pick London Calling, and yeah, OK, I know all the arguments supporting that position (and they are, I admit, pretty good arguments), but for me nothing's better than the first one. And Complete Control should be #1 on the list, because Complete Control, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the Parthenon, the Great Wall of China, the pyramids, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. etc. What I'm trying to say is A HIGH POINT OF HUMAN CULTURE, basically.
posted by scratch at 4:51 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


Money quote of the article: " Too many of this song’s lyrics are applicable today. "
posted by Artw at 4:51 PM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


According to all mainstream rock radio, "Rock the Casbah" is the only song The Clash ever released.
posted by davebush at 4:53 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


IIRC Should I Stay or Should I Go was in the British charts for several million years on accounts of being in a jeans commercial, posibly only displaced by that song from Four Weddings and a Funeral.
posted by Artw at 4:55 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Well he got #1 correct!

no, he fucking didn't. I've got no particular problem with White Man in Hammersmith Palais (a solid and soulful and poetic early excursion into the reggae realm), but would have no problem at all finding twenty tracks* I'd happily rate higher.

Or as Frowner already put it: "I think that this fellow does not enjoy the things about the Clash that I enjoy about the Clash."

He's right about Cut the Crap though.

* Twenty-One Tracks I rate higher than White Man in Hammersmith Palais (in no particular order):

Charlie don't surf
Spanish guns
I'm so bored with the USA
Kingston advice
brand new Cadillac
white riot
street parade
guns of Brixton
clampdown
safe European home
bankrobber
Rudy can't fail
one more time
the magnificent seven
straight to hell
armagideon time
police + thieves
if music could talk
Broadway
I fought the law
should I stay or should I go?

Never before have I heard anyone name Sandinista as their best album.

You obviously never talked to me about it.
posted by philip-random at 4:57 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


not their most ambitious song but it is among their most perfect.

Someone once described Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge over Troubled Water" as "a breathtakingly perfect song." I don't really get this, except as an extreme way to say "XYZ is their best song" when actually you mean "XYZ is my favorite song." I mean, is there a song perfection checklist that I don't know about? I'm not a musician, so maybe there's something about the actual melody or whatever that's mathematically perfect? Hell, I don't know. I just think Complete Control is the bomb, the shit, the cat's pajamas.
posted by scratch at 4:59 PM on October 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Throw me in with the "Give 'Em Enough Rope deserves more credit than he's giving it" crowd when this thread inevitably breaks out into a full-on rumble.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:03 PM on October 14, 2017 [7 favorites]


Now I want to listen to go on a listening spree, so it does that.
posted by Artw at 5:04 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


Artw: yay!
posted by scratch at 5:06 PM on October 14, 2017


I don't really get this, except as an extreme way to say "XYZ is their best song" when actually you mean "XYZ is my favorite song."

there is just something so satisfying about the way the disparate parts of that song come together. it’s magic. that’s what i mean when i say it’s perfect, i’m not coming at it from a theory perspective or anything, just pure unadulterated emotion. yes, it’s basically a pop song, but it’s a pop song by one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

i think casbah suffers from stairway to heaven syndrome (though casbah is a better song). yes, it was extremely, incredibly overplayed, and if you personally can’t listen to it i get it, but you can’t deny the work. if it came out tomorrow we’d be raving over it, or, if you’re like me, you’re sixteen in 2008 and you’ve probably heard this song a couple times a year since you were born but now you’ve got a couple of Clash CDs in your five disc changer and for the first time you really listen to how the piano and guitar play against each other and there are these crazy lazer sound effects and these little beep-boop embellishments and joe strummer just sounds stark raving mad and it blows your fuckin mind. when you strip away the decades of baggage the song drags around, it just sounds so great.

and again it’s not my favorite. that would be train in vain, the band’s other perfect pop song. i just think it would be insane to exclude it from a “top ten best” list just because it’s overplayed. it’s overplayed for a good reason.
posted by JimBennett at 5:19 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


Seems like we're not done fucking with Iran, so... topical!
posted by Artw at 5:21 PM on October 14, 2017


This list?
Sharif don’t like it.
posted by chavenet at 5:27 PM on October 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


this is a public service announcement. with guitars!

still relevant.

also. wtf w give 'm enough rope? stay free? safe european home?

best punk record: london calling
best world music psycho-fuck masterpiece: sandinista
posted by j_curiouser at 5:27 PM on October 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


also...anybody got a flac of rat patrol?
posted by j_curiouser at 5:31 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Spinning "Super Black Market Clash" right now. Thank you Metafilter.
posted by davebush at 5:48 PM on October 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


This gets me pumped to listen to music, so it is the worthwhile kind of music writing.
posted by Sauce Trough at 5:57 PM on October 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Just to show that very little is completely irredeemable, here's Sparks saving "We Are The Clash".
posted by Beverley Westwood at 6:05 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


> Money quote of the article: " Too many of this song’s lyrics are applicable today. "

Well, that or describing Thatcher's Britain as a "socialist country".
posted by GeckoDundee at 7:48 PM on October 14, 2017


I find it hard to have opinions about specific Clash songs because their whole catalog (excepting Cut The Crap) is so deeply etched into my neural pathways that I have trouble separating them from myself. I'm not sure if there's a way to count how many times that I've listen to the entire three disks of Sandinista on vinyl but I'm sure that my college roommates could form an approximation. I'm just happy that they never broke them over my head.

P.S. The inner groove of the original vinyl set had the phrase etched into the plastic, "In space, no one can hear you clash!".
posted by octothorpe at 7:50 PM on October 14, 2017 [5 favorites]


The way I see it, they should have changed their name to Big Audio Dynamite before releasing Combat Rock.
posted by incster at 7:53 PM on October 14, 2017 [3 favorites]


The Card Cheat at #9 is higher than I'd place it, even considering.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:17 PM on October 14, 2017 [6 favorites]


Well, that or describing Thatcher's Britain as a "socialist country".

Oh man. That is all highly relative.
posted by Artw at 8:54 PM on October 14, 2017


> Now I want to listen to go on a listening spree, so it does that.

I just got home from having a couple of drinks and now it's time to do just that. Here's how I'd rank their studio albums:

1. London Calling
2. Sandinista (a very close second, a lot of my favourite songs are on this one, but it is a bit inconsistent...there's only one dud ("Lover's Rock") on London Calling, so it inches by on consistent quality)
3. The Clash
4. Combat Rock (has aged very well for the most part, as others have pointed out)
5. Give 'Em Enough Rope (never did much for me aside from "Safe European Home")
6. Cut The Crap (unbelievably terrible. I'm sure there are fans of this album out there somewhere, but I've never met one)

If you ask me on a different day I might switch #1 and #2 and/or #3 and #4, and "Black Market Clash" would be somewhere in the middle if I were to throw that in.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:13 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


That's a fair point, Artw, especially in light of, as you say, today's parallels. It just rankled a bit to have the author complain about how easy it was for a bunch of white kids to recommend standing up to authority in Thatcher's Britain. Sure they had a reasonably functional NHS, but the album was released just a few months after Blair Peach's death. I'm no doubt over-reacting, but standing up to racism and fascism wasn't just "turning rebellion into money" for them.
posted by GeckoDundee at 9:18 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Jail Guitar Doors wasn't that bad, and I love I'm Not Down! Certainly not worse than some of the filler from Sandanista like Crooked Beat.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 9:39 PM on October 14, 2017


j_curiouser -- matter of fact, sure. 2nd link works.
posted by hap_hazard at 9:52 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


also glad to see Straight to Hell so high, but Hitsville UK at 4? huh?
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 9:57 PM on October 14, 2017 [4 favorites]


Though wrong about number one (so so hilariously wrong) it was a totally enjoyable read.

My number one (?) yeah, probably depends on barometric pressure or level of caffeination or season. But like the best art it's subjective, fleeting and simultaneously ephemeral and yet specific and engrossing.
posted by From Bklyn at 10:04 PM on October 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


From 'related' links I guess- Joe Strummer & The Latino Rockabilly War Straight to Hell. Not exactly on-topic I suppose, but what the hell, it sounds pretty OK!
posted by hap_hazard at 10:14 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


He's got most of Give 'Em Enough Rope too low,


I came here to say exactly this. I know I'm in the minority on this, but I think GEER was their best album. Hard and soulful enough to be really good punk rock, better production than earlier stuff, and not as over-polished as London Calling and subsequent albums were. The perfect balance.
posted by mikeand1 at 10:43 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Here's how I'd rank their studio albums:

The Card Cheat -- we're uncannily close on this particular topic, right down to Safe European Home being the #1 keeper from Give 'Em Enough Rope, though I would want to nod to Stay Free and Guns on the Roof as well. And Black Market (more of a compilation than a proper album, it's true) would probably slot in behind The Clash at #4. As one friend might put it, "The original vinyl version is the perfect Clash sampler, offering a chunk of everything they did well ... and all stuff that, for whatever reason, never made it onto a proper album. Which just argues all the harder for the fucking depth of that band. Seriously, the Rolling Stones of their time, from gritty "punk" beginnings through to smarter, more daring and sophisticated stuff that pretty much always clicked ... except unlike the Stones, The Clash had the good grace to call it quits after only one awful album."
posted by philip-random at 11:05 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


While I don't agree with many of the rankings, big shock, I will side with the author on the US version of The Clash being better than the original UK version. So much so that I'd list it as the best Clash album were it to be counted as separate from the UK's. The added variety of (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais, Complete Control, Jail Guitar Doors, I Fought the Law, Clash City Rockers, and my preferred version of White Riot more than makes up for the loss of Deny, Cheat, Protex Blues, and 48 Hours. The UK version is the "real" one of course and more of a piece perhaps, but the US one better shows the range of the group and has a much better flow to it.

After that, London Calling, Sandinista, Give 'Em Enough Rope, Combat Rock with the assorted leftovers then being fit wherever. (Sandinsta edges out Give 'Em Enough Rope only if I can skip the parts I don't like, otherwise I'll take the Rope.)
posted by gusottertrout at 11:45 PM on October 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Lost in the Supermarket. Can no longer shop happily. Wasn't born so much as I fell out.
posted by AugustWest at 1:14 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Tons of wealthy Vietnamese kids merged into the Northern Virginia school systems after the war and then another not wealthy wave of them during the boat people thing. I had three close Vietnamese friends. Hey, I want you to listen to this. Straight to Hell made them all cry and they became Clash fans.

I also played that for a bunch of Namvets who were over for dinner. Some of them had left kids over there because the evacuation orders were restrictive. Not their kind of music but they could relate.

So that's my pick.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 4:11 AM on October 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


"Jimmy Jazz" is way too low.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:21 AM on October 15, 2017 [9 favorites]


I know these lists are written just so people can argue about them and I'm not going to fall into that trap. Except "Gates of the West" should be higher. I mean, WTF?
posted by maurice at 7:19 AM on October 15, 2017



That's a fair point, Artw, especially in light of, as you say, today's parallels. It just rankled a bit to have the author complain about how easy it was for a bunch of white kids to recommend standing up to authority in Thatcher's Britain. Sure they had a reasonably functional NHS, but the album was released just a few months after Blair Peach's death. I'm no doubt over-reacting, but standing up to racism and fascism wasn't just "turning rebellion into money" for them.


See, the "it was so easy and safe to stand up to racism in [time]" argument is 100% garbage, because it puts the focus on the subjective experience/moral worth of the people standing up to racism. It is a hobbyist's argument, a sports fan argument, framed as if the value of "standing up to racism" is not in, like, attacking racism but in the style and grace displayed by the activists.

When exactly is one supposed to "stand up to racism" if not the fucking rise of Thatcher? Should they have waited, on the theory that they still had the NHS? The Clash came together at the end of the seventies, during the rise of the National Front. I mean, when I think of the late seventies/early 80s in the UK, I think of a racist and classist backlash given room by seventies economic conditions and stoked by Thatcher*. White people standing up against racism are not exactly super common ever, IME.

*Everyone is all "oh the seventies unemployment was so bad, etc etc", but in When The Lights Went Out by Andy Beckett, he points out that actually even at the worst, unemployment and other markers were better than they ever were under Thatcher, and almost entirely better than they've ever been since. People were right that things went to shit, but they were dead wrong about why and how to fix them, and it's been downhill since.
posted by Frowner at 7:35 AM on October 15, 2017 [7 favorites]


Ordering asside, actually reading the entries bears wonderful fruit.
posted by Artw at 7:42 AM on October 15, 2017 [5 favorites]


He's got most of Give 'Em Enough Rope too low,

Some good ideas, but kinda ruined by bad production, as Wyman mentions. (And I actually liked Blue Oyster Cult, too.) I also think my vinyl copy wasn't pressed very well. Possibly one of the most muddy sounding albums I can think of.

I like the sprawling weirdness of 'Sandinista' as best album, although my favorite individual Clash songs are mostly from the first album.
posted by ovvl at 9:56 AM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


> And Complete Control should be #1 on the list, because Complete Control, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the Parthenon, the Great Wall of China, the pyramids, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. etc. What I'm trying to say is A HIGH POINT OF HUMAN CULTURE, basically.

I'm skipping the rest of the comments for now to quote this and say YES GODDAMMIT THIS IS THE TRUTH. I was enjoying the list and listening to a bunch of the songs and being reminded of how fucking great the Clash was and getting gladder and gladder as I kept not seeing “Complete Control” and then finally there it was... at #5?? OK, maybe I'm forgetting that they had four even greater songs... nope, “Straight to Hell” is a fine song but there's no way it's #2, it shouldn't even be in the top ten. I have no idea what this guy's criteria are but he's privileging something way higher than music and songs, because “Complete Control” is... well, it's what scratch said.

OK, I'll read more of the thread now.
posted by languagehat at 9:56 AM on October 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


OK, I've finished the thread, which is (as is sadly inevitable) mainly composed of griping about the ordering. I realize that's exactly what I did with my first comment, but come on, that placement was sacrilege. Anyway, the ordering is basically just an excuse on which to hang a history of the band and of punk and a deep dive into what made them so great; if all you're doing is skimming to see whether songs are too high/low, you're missing the entire point. Here's a provocative idea I don't remember seeing before (which means nothing, since I barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday):
Some punks, Jones and Simonon prominent among them, were getting into reggae; expressing solidarity with the Jamaicans and West Indians they knew from the streets around them. This also worked as a sort of political prophylactic from charges of racism stemming from the movement’s contempt for the blues, which was associated with the Stones and Eric Clapton and the like.
And the writing is terrific:
After the extraordinary London Calling, the Clash, out of a mixture of arrogance, creativity, mischievousness and, not least, a misunderstanding of their recording contract, gave us a three-record set. Famously, it sold for not much more than a single disc, and in the end unfortunately did not reduce their obligations to Columbia by three albums. (Why the band didn’t just ask a lawyer before embarking on this legal maneuver is of course a mystery.) No one should release a three-record set, of course, and particularly not a punk band. But one of the reasons we love the Clash is that release a three-record set they did [...]
And “London’s Burning” is "docked ten notches for being a song about not having anything to do in fucking London. Kids, Jesus."

And on “Garageland”: "You have to feel a bit for CBS; you can just hear an exec saying, 'That would be a great song if someone else were singing it,' not knowing that that was exactly what the song itself was about, both lyrically and musically."

And "Like Dylan, Strummer had an instinctive impulse to support whoever was being persecuted at any given time, even if the person deserved it."

Minor quibble:

(“Charlie,” of course, was Nam-speak for the North Vietnamese.)


No it fucking wasn't, it was Nam-speak for the Viet Cong (the South Vietnamese insurgents). "Charlie" is short for "Victor Charlie," which is army-speak for VC. VC, Viet Cong, get it? Kids, Jesus.

Anyway: Must be a Clash, there's no alternative!
posted by languagehat at 10:10 AM on October 15, 2017 [8 favorites]


I'm sure it says more about me than the evolution of rock music but I still think they're The Only Band That Matters.

One thing the writer got wrong was writing off Joe's post-Clash career. Yes he went through a rough patch, who wouldn't after that party, but some of his work with the Mescaleros is really good and a fitting part of his legacy.
posted by ecourbanist at 11:23 AM on October 15, 2017 [7 favorites]


Late to the party, but count me in for agreeing that Wyman seems to prioritize very different things in the Clash than I do. But that's one of the things I love about them; they contain such multitudes that there's room for lots of different takes.

A much better deep-think of the Clash, if you ask me, is Marcus Gray's Route 19 Revisited; the Clash and London Calling. It's one of my favorite pieces of music writing, and goes into absurd detail about: the biographical background of the band leading up to the album, the process of recording the album, and what's going on lyrically and musically in each of the songs. It's indispensable, and clears up a bunch of things that Wyman seems confused about ("The Right Profile" is possibly a sideways tribute to Guy Stephens underneath all of the Montgomery Clift talk; all of the production decisions Wyman credits to Guy Stephens are probably more accurately credited to Bill Price and Mick Jones; "The Card Cheat" is at least partly about Bergman). The only other rock writing I even think is in this league is Chris O'Leary writing about Bowie.

Wyman talks a little bit about both the band's late-period tensions, and their bad habit of dumping out several albums' worth of material in album releases that didn't appropriately reduce their record company obligations. I think these two things were actually pretty tightly tied together, and that from London Calling on, they were unintentionally putting themselves in a contractual pressure cooker that doomed them. I wrote about this in a little more depth back when I was planning on doing regular essays about how bands broke up.

Anyway, "Safe European Home" should have been #1, and "Hammersmith" #2.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 11:28 AM on October 15, 2017 [4 favorites]


Totally weird that Koka Kola is so derided by Wyman. I always thought of Wrong ‘Em Boyo, Koka Kola, and Death or Glory one of the best 1-2-3 punches in rock.

Very interesting idea though — with a better producer they might have used some of the extra Sandinista output for Combat Rock and both albums would have been better. And I love both records, but you certainly have to forgive a lot to listen to both records all the way through.

And oh my god, Rock the Casbah is barely a Clash song, much less one of their greats. But it got Joe and Mick on MTV wearing gas masks in front of oil rigs, so yeah ok.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:42 AM on October 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


> Anyway, "Safe European Home" should have been #1, and "Hammersmith" #2.

See, that I can respect. I will definitely read your bust-up essay!
posted by languagehat at 12:42 PM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Hey, the phlegmatic king's The Bust-Up: The Clash is a great little essay—go read it, everybody!
posted by languagehat at 12:54 PM on October 15, 2017 [4 favorites]


Yeah, Wyman’s rock-crit writing is head and shoulders above most, considering that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, or however that saying goes. He’s actually understandable and has interesting things to say, and manages to say them without a lot of the hooptedoodle that makes so much rock criticism irritating and incomprehensible.

Now I’m going to play Complete Control several times, loud enough for languagehat to hear.
posted by scratch at 1:00 PM on October 15, 2017 [3 favorites]


Thanks!
posted by the phlegmatic king at 1:06 PM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


I was surprised to see Straight to Hell so high (such an odd song-- I thought I was the only person who loved it) and Koka Kola so low. Glad that he spared This is England from overall Cut the Crap hate (like... I like Dictator way more than, say, Lost in the Supermarket which I've never felt a lot of love for). "I've got my motorcycle jacket but I'm walking all the time" was very much my sad poor early 20s. Interesting to see other people's opinions so varied.
posted by Capybara at 1:20 PM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


118. “Corner Soul,” Sandinista! (1980): The band didn’t have a real producer on Sandinista!; if they had, he would have had the thankless task of reining in sonic misfires like this. It all seems labored in pursuit of giving meaning to this track, which seems to be about Asian and South American peasants and their music somehow being the soundtrack to revolution.

Okay, this was something that I meant to bring up. As far as I can tell, "Corner Soul" is about police searches in Ladbroke Grove, the neighborhood where the Clash was formed. Intensely gentrified now, but not then. The reference to the "rivers of blood" speech situates the song pretty firmly in the UK and it seems pretty obviously a song about racial violence in London. Wyman's reading of this song just seems weird to me, and it seems to sort of sum up why I find his rankings hard to understand.
posted by Frowner at 3:18 PM on October 15, 2017 [6 favorites]


May have assumed Straight To Helol wa more popular than it is based on the amount it has been sampled.
posted by Artw at 3:31 PM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


The live version of Magnificent Seven from 1981 is worth mentioning, too.
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 3:56 PM on October 15, 2017


The live version of Magnificent Seven

also, on Tom Snyder's show ...
posted by philip-random at 4:51 PM on October 15, 2017


I'd love to read companion like, "how to listen to this album" guide for Sandinista. I wanted to LOVE it, but it just seems like too much filler, and I'm just not stoned enough to enjoy it. I do like the "But you CAN'T release a triple record at the price of an EP!!!" thing the Clash did. I'm sure no one made money on it.
posted by alex_skazat at 10:19 PM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


also, on Tom Snyder's show ...

Guh, so good. Strummer is absolutely shaking with energy. One of my biggest regrets is not seeing him with the Mescaleros when I had the chance. I hope that dude is playing Johnny Be Good in heaven!
posted by alex_skazat at 10:24 PM on October 17, 2017


I'd love to read companion like, "how to listen to this album" guide for Sandinista.

LSD -- it worked for me. Except it wasn't long enough.
posted by philip-random at 12:20 AM on October 18, 2017


Lo these many years ago, when tapes were a thing, I used my CD/tape player to make a condensed version of Sandinista. I listed to this for a while and eventually got into the whole album. Honestly, if you remove the last side, "One More Dub", "Kingston Advice" and "Mensforth Hill" you have a very large, listenable album. Not all of it is up there with, eg, "Magnificent Seven", but I'd say that there's something interesting, enjoyable and easily accessible about each of the remaining songs. Even the ones I don't especially like stay with me pretty well.
posted by Frowner at 4:49 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]


Any Clash super-fans still here - what's with the ship captain hats?
posted by thelonius at 5:16 AM on October 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


Lost in the Supermarket which I've never felt a lot of love for

At the time that came out Giant had just opened a Giant Gourmet near us and my sister and I would grab frozen shrink-wrapped goat heads and hold them in front of our faces and mock talk to each other for them like they were stuffed animals and forget what we came for and everyone around us was also lost in the supermarket, discovering things. I don't know what was happening in the UK then.

So we loved that song.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 5:46 AM on October 19, 2017


I went to a supermarket on LSD once. That was a serious error! Really, don't do that.
posted by thelonius at 6:26 AM on October 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


I went to a supermarket on LSD once.

back in the day, Lost in the Supermarket was our catch-phrase for being high on acid while out in the normal world -- shopping, driving, every day to-and-fro-ing.
posted by philip-random at 10:58 AM on October 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


I am heartened by all the Train In Vain fans in this post and happy it was so high in the list.
posted by Foaf at 11:13 PM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


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