GenturZine

Tracklist
1. London Calling
2. Brand New Cadillac
3. Jimmy Jazz
4. Hateful
5. Rudie Can't Fail
6. Spanish Bombs
7. The Right Profile
8. Lost In The Supermarket
9. Clampdown
10. The Guns Of Brixton
11. Wrong 'Em Boyo
12. Death Or Glory
13. Koka Kola
14. The Card Cheat
15. Lover's Rock
16. Four Horsemen
17. I'm Not Down
18. Revolution Rock
19. Train In Vain

This is without doubt one of the few rock albums ever launched that's nearly inconceivable to over praise. One can stack on the superlatives, heap on a few more, and still have room for much more laurels. It's most likely by any standard one of the best albums launched within the rock period, indisputably the best album released by a band with its roots in punk, the best explicitly political album ever released by somebody who was not Bob Dylan, and a kind of scarce albums that does not appear to age at all. There isn't a weak cut on the album. The truth is, the songs aren't merely good but great.

Though The Clash started off as a punk band, they had been never enough outlined by that tendency. Though rooted within the attitudes and political sympathies of the punk movement (and over all else, English Punk, as opposed to the foregone American Punk, was extremely political; originator Malcolm McLaren was deeply influenced by Guy Debord and the Situationist International, and contained many political concepts in promoting the Sex Pistols and his punk styles), The Clash rapidly outgrew the punk aesthetic. The Clash almost instantly started conveniently and smoothly assimilating a number of musical influenced. They were the primary rock band, as an example, to use reggae rhythms and never make them sound like a gimmick (compare The Clash's fantastic "The Guns of Brixton" with Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Maker," which while good sounds a bit like a novelty music, while The Clash sound like they ripped the music off some Jamaicans). The songs are extraordinarily sophisticated and polished, even once they sound casually. For example, listen to the almost slap-bang way "Jimmy Jazz" begins, as if the band cannot determine whether to permit the opening riff improve right into a full fledged song. Even when it gets totally underway, there may be an easy looseness to the song that persists throughout the perfectly orchestrated song. It's a work of art of unflappable talent.

Most of the songs are so brilliantly authentic to seem nearly impossible. It is not simply that the songs are authentic; nothing else even remotely like lots of them had ever been completed before. Where is the ancestor of "Hateful"? Who cooked up "Lost in the Supermarket," with its superb mixing of political and social ideas? Before listening to "The Right Profile," may anyone have imagined it possible to write a classical about Montgomery Cliff's car wreck? Even songs that remind one unclearly of earlier songs handle to sound underivative. As an example, there's more than just a little Phil Spector's wall of sound in "The Card Cheat," but where do these horns come from?

A sign of the genius of this album could be seen in the truth that though it is likely one of the nice leftist albums of all time, essentially the most reactionary rock fan might still love each song. It's unquestionably great political rock, however greater than that it's simply flat out superior rock. It's nearly as if The Clash recreated on this album all of the rebelliousness contained within the first rockers of the 1950s.

Nowadays, when every different album seems to be getting particular extended versions, this one really may gain advantage from such behavior. The liner notes on the current U.S. version are nonexistent. Expectantly this will probably be corrected sooner or later within the comparatively close to future.