London's Calling???...who gives a Fuck!? I hear that Scunthorpe's Calling next week....I won't be answering that either!
However, this value for money double disc adult orientated Punk is thee single most boring supposedly edgy rock album that ever existed, clueless politics, tuneless lumpen riffs, overproduction and stylised painful fashion input.This album was hilariously voted 'The Best Album Of The Eighties' by Rolling Stone Magazine a few decades ago.....dispite the fact that it was released in....er.... 1979.....which says a lot about Rolling Stone magazine doesn't it?
Fucking hell, it's got the words printed inside,which is always a bad sign.That usually means that the scribe who penned them thinks they are serious and important.In other words.....yaaawn...they've got something to say....ahhhhh.
It's not the music as such that gets on my proverbials,its the please like us musicality of it.They wanted to make nice tuneful music for their 'fans',who,along with Fall Fans, Residents Fans,idiots into Krautrock who think they've discovered something nobody else was aware of...but worse....are thee most despicable morons on the planet.Who's your favourite band, mine's "THE CLASH"...spat out with a child like pride......The Only Band That Ever Mattered???...some wag said once....more like the only band that NEVER mattered.Just playing at being the rebels they obviously weren't.The single most boring rock band that ever existed,I repeat.
Listening to Mick Jones trying his best to sing properly is an obvious low point on this nicely priced,value for money opus.
As for their Punky-Reggae by numbers outings,OMFG!? "Please like us Mr Black Man we're like you really,we're repressed too" says the diplomats son and his art school chums.They'd be the first to slag anyone off for Cultural misappropriation,but as for the govt's they pretend to dislike,there was one rule for them and another rule for everyone else.
"White Riot" has to be the single most stupid record ever made during the Punk Rock window.Also the record that convinced that idiot who started 'Punk' magazine in New York that he and the Ramones invented Punk Rock!Not that the Ramones ever claimed such a thing naturally.
"London Calling"'s title is suggesting the same tenuous claim.
Of course it's as Eclectic as fuck,desperatley trying to please everyone at the same time,while at the same time residing in that place where everyone goes when they've ran out of ideas.
"Let's mix it up with some ska and african music man" Says,Joe 'Woody' Mellor the diplomat's son,"Yeaaah,no-ones done that before!?" says the art school rejects in response......I notice that Paul Simon's "Graceland" resides at number five on the Rolling Stone list, the very zenith of cultural misappropriation,and I dare say wasn't in slightest bit inspired by the Clash's thieving from their new found Black Chums;but Simon went one further than Simonon and his cohorts of impeccably good taste, and actually made a bunch of African musicians record,write and play most of the music,uncredited, for the minimum wage.While he played (Achthung! possible anti-semetic joke coming up!!!)....wait for it,wait for it.... 'The Jewish Piano',I'll repeat that....'Thee Jewish Piano', with the the vast profits he received for the career resurrecting hit album.Maybe it was some kind of avant-garde statement about slavery or something?Either way,it's one hell of a shite LP.
I did it, I managed to slag off two pompously arrogant albums in one fell swoop.
The Clash's eponymous debut was relatively good however,if you managed to block out the pale white boy crypto-hooliganism,and the sweet vocal harmonies behind Strummer's,I'm from the gutter,me" slurred yawping.The politics.....oh Christ,the bloody Politics.Since when was Vote Labour a subversive statement.Give us a job and everything will be alright,seems to be the policy.....er.....No!...and White Riot?...Give Violence a chance is the mantra,but it's only for us white chaps,you Blacks have your own riots.Such Dumbness never existed beyond a Sham 69 lecture about how us pop stars are the same as you,but keep off the stage.If you wanna be patronised listen to the words,alas if you want a good time,just absorb it as some jolly good,but terribly played and recorded cathartic rock'n'roll that was a la mode for twenty minutes in 1977.Better still listen to cartoon Proto-Punk leg-ends, The Ramones,which is kinda like The Clash but with better,probably more subversive, lyrics.And without the dodgy attempts at 'Punk' fashion.
I Can't face doing a full review pf "Sandinsta", sorry.
Apart from, it's Truly Awful,'eclectic' as fuck,and endlessly dull.
