LONDON POLLING: the clash the london calling poll for gods sake

haters welcome. c'mon in and sit awhile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbD5v2xijqw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpiBYytFR8g&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKxiN0fdKP8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y86gw9xblsI&feature=fvw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPVQKQgSWgM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzvggodmBzk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY5JfQY6BHw&feature=PlayList&p=F7798E342D7770F5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=14

(shot in a wegmans!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c0wzyQflGU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7HwwA2x3Qs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYMz4dyC_yo

(fucking tres bien)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1opxAicHAg&feature=PlayList&p=F82C578150E53E19&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s18V8TeMp4c&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2d2a4Fsmng

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4xL9tiuNz0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOBd3NZyLG0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKWO-wgzf20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrbrlBEy-NI&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrIvLvzxV48&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIx7k2gYT1I

this album is turning 30 but i didn't know what to get it so i started a poll.

(polls are also what i'm getting most of my family for christmas.)

"Lost in the Supermarket" is always in the running for my favorite song ever, so that.

yes, "Lost in the Supermarket" for me too

i think probably "rudie can't fail" is unbeatable for me, but there's a whole bunch of contenders. the title track, "supermarket," "hateful," "spanish bombs," "clampdown," "brixton," "koka kola."

Guns of Brixton.

one thing on this album is i love the last minute or so of a bunch of the songs, the vamp sections where joe (or mick, but mostly joe) starts sort of babbling or free associating and the whole song starts to sound like it's coming apart at the seams. they were good vampers.

Oh yeah, this should be the easiest poll eva. I've already got it narrowed down to ten. ;~)

London Calling
Brand New Cadillac
Hateful
Rudie Can't Fail
Lost in the Supermarket
Clampdown
The Guns of Brixton
Death or Glory
Revolution Rock
Train in Vain

Gonna march a long way
Fight a long time
Get to travel over mountains
Got to travel over seas
We're gonna fight your brother
We're gonna fight til you lose
We're gonna raise trouble
We're gonna raise hell
We're gonna fight your brother
We're gonna raise hell

jesus christ i love this fucking album

"Spanish Bombs" no question but after that there's probably 8 or 9 it could be.

Gotta say I've always thought the title track is a bit boring.

The Clash have always been one of my blind spots. They've always seemed a bit ... grey. Would love to know what I'm missing. That said, I picked 'Rudie Can't Fail' for my first listen here and it sounds great - lovely and warm.

^ Those 16 years old who chose "Lovers Rock" of all songs, wow. That makes me want to choose that song. I like at 2:45 when it pans to the right, and there's the chunky blond kid in a Nirvana t-shirt with the Cousin It hair. I see that kid every time a walk in a mall.

love this a lot. could've been 'lost in the supermarket', could've been 'the right profile', but as i'm a sap, i'll go for 'train in vain'. i love the clash at their most pop.

hmm hard one this, title track, spanish bombs, lost in the supermarket, death or glory and train in vain are my favourites but narrowing it down would be tougher.

poll makes me feel bad for a tune like "i'm not down," which could be the best song on a lot of records but is just another deep cut here. "skyscraper! rising up!"

just listening to that song now and totally digging on topper -- the way he plays pretty much straight-up on the first verse, switches to 8th-note triplets on the 2nd and then cymbal-bell offbeats on the 3rd, and then sort of cod-disco on the chorus. it makes the whole thing feel like it's always in motion, never settles down.

another vote for lost in the supermarket, though shit maybe i should have voted for spanish bombs

I've just given the whole thing a run-through. Fantastic record. I've actually owned it for about fifteen years without ever having much liked it, but you caught me on a good day. I really dig the rockabilly feel and, as someone said, the vamping. They sound like they're having great fun.

Will revert when I've settled on a favourite.

Hey, why no love for "The Card Cheat"? Voted that one, pcos it's the most epic and widescreen thing they ever did.

yeah, i really dug that one just now, playing it through again. i'm not a huge devotee to consistency, but they really made an all-killer no-filler double here.

Man this is one of my favorite albums ever. So hard to choose. Shit. OK the contenders are:

London Calling
Brand New Cadillac
Rudie Can't Fail
Lost in the Supermarket
Clampdown
Spanish Bombs

I am also inclined to vote "supermarket" but I think that I need to sit on this one for a bit.

Four Horsemen, which marks the point where for me, great as the rest is, the album becomes fantastic until the end.

"Train In Vain"

Voted "Death or Glory", w/ "Guns of Brixton" & "Koka Kola" nipping at its heels.

one thing on this album is i love the last minute or so of a bunch of the songs, the vamp sections where joe (or mick, but mostly joe) starts sort of babbling or free associating and the whole song starts to sound like it's coming apart at the seams. they were good vampers. ― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra)

^^YES to this^^

Not many records better than this one. It was as if they had completely mastered the art of rock and roll. Robert Christgau put it best in his review: "Here's where they start showing off."

Not a bad song here, but I'll go with Death or Glory.

i love how "death or glory" mythologizes its own demythology. like, this is all a hoax, but isn't it fun?

i love how "death or glory" mythologizes its own demythology. like, this is all a hoax, but isn't it fun?

so OTM it hurts. i feel like "death or glory" doesn't get the love because it so unapologetically ROCKS (because yeah it's all shite but hey here comes the chorus!) and isn't all Socially Relevant like Brixton (which was my number two) but as a pisstake on consumer culture its cheap highs and terrible costs and whatnot it cuts much deeper than the throwaway "lost in the supermarket"

it also without fail always seems to call to mind really serious Social Distortion fans. dunno why.

I love this song <3 <3 <3

I never liked this album until this year, somehow. I liked the title track and some of the Clash's earlier stuff (White Riot etc) but I was into punk and it didn't hit me like Iggy or Black Flag did, but now listening with a cleansed pallet I realize it's actually just a rock and roll album, and one of the best of all time. I let it play in my car for weeks and the melodies take root deep in the brain

guns of brixton bassline ftw

something tells me the SW9 artillery is going to sweep the board, but i'm going with revolution rock...and bongo jazz a speciality

this is truly hard!! i could honestly go with any one of about 6.

this is very impossible. went w/"supermarket", a sentimental fave; but think "all of 'em" is the only reasonable answer.

Oh yeah, this should be the easiest poll eva. I've already got it narrowed down to ten. ;~)

London Calling
Brand New Cadillac
Hateful
Rudie Can't Fail
Lost in the Supermarket
Clampdown
The Guns of Brixton
Death or Glory
Revolution Rock
Train in Vain

Hey, why no love for "The Card Cheat"? Voted that one, pcos it's the most epic and widescreen thing they ever did.

^^^^^ on this. Voted for this and Topper's old soul fixation.

the transition from Four Horseman to I'm Not Down is one of my favourite moments in music ever.

have no idea how to vote in this poll, but actually considering I'm Not Down because of that.

'Death or Glory' or 'Spanish Bombs' but this is really, really hard.

thanks for putting the full name of the band & album in the title i hate when people make a poll and they force you to decipher their incredibly-shitty-and-also-search-proof pun (not that this one was a fuckin mystery but u know what i'm saiyan)

right now it's hard to see beyond the chanting bits in 'Hateful'

cosign the full-name-in-title thing too. This is a perfect thread

LONDON POLLING seemed too big, dumb and obvious not to do, but yeah i wanted to optimize future ilm searches. (partly cuz i spent 5 minutes searching for different combinations of things to see if it'd been done already.)

and i love the call-and-response on "hateful." band i was in in college used to play that song, that was what made it fun.

these songs should have been number one hits. i wonder what kind of impact this album would have had with a more conventional singer instead of strummer's pub-rock yowling (which i love btw)

actually, now that i think about Gary Numan and B-52's were having big hits at the time. the market was primed for weirdness

yeah, I thought this had been done already too.

I echo lots of the comments already, and picked "Spanish Bombs." As a fluent Spanish speaker, I was flattered by how incoherent Jones sounds.

i voted for Spanish Bombs in the end too but tipsy's post about I'm Not Down kinda makes me wish i hadn't, he's so otm

you know what

i used to love this album deeply when i was young, but haven't listened to ANY of it in a long long time

now i've been going off the clash a bit - mostly been hearing some of the later singles tbh - and the love shown in this thread has convinced me that i must listen to this album again very soon - so i will

the market was primed for weirdness

as "rock the casbah" demonstrated a few years later.

but i remember hearing "train in vain" some on rock radio. it wasn't a huge hit, but it was around.

i always think i don't need to listen to this ever again because i've heard it so much, but once every year or two i'll wander into it on the ipod or elsewhere and get stuck on it for a few days. taken on its own, canon and all to the side (to the extent that's possible), it's so much fun to listen to.

Love for the Clash makes me happy - they often get a hard time on ILM.

I'm not a *massive* fan of this album, probably because there's too many songs on it. Definitely The Guns Of Brixton is my favourite song at the moment, but I've always loved the title track as well.

jesus christ i love this fucking album

― jabba hands, 2009年11月20日 18:16 (Yesterday) Bookmark

"The Card Cheat" is like "Wishin' and Hopin'," several incredible choruses stitched together, choruses that if separated could hold up a song with completely uninteresting verses, but no, some madman brought them together so that rousing moment of catharsis that makes our guts go rogue from our skeletons could be extended over a whole four minutes.

I voted for "The Card Cheat."

I might have to abstain from this poll because choosing one out of Rudie Can't Fail, Guns of Brixton, Supermarket, and I'm Not Down might kill me.

lyrical moments #1:

london calling, yeah i was there too
and you know what they said? well some of it was true

rudy can't fail

lyrical moments #2:

your eyeballs feel like pinballs
and your tongue feels like a fish

lyrical moments #3:

one was over the edge, one was over the cliff
one was lickin' em dry with a bloody great spliff

He said, "Go out, get me my old movie stills
Go out 'n' get me another roll of pills"
There I go shaking, but I ain't got the chills
Urghbxxxplxtfllkkaaahhh!

"Clampdown," but it could just as easily have been the title track. Or "Rudie Can't Fail." Or "Koka Kola." Or "Jimmy Jazz."

I think I'm down to a choice 'tween 'Hateful' and 'Rudie Cant Fail' but it's all good. I'm finding it a little bit of a drag to get all the way through the second half in one go though.

side note on "wrong 'em boyo" -- i suppose most people who are interested have probably come across this stuff at one point or another, but here's a good round-up of the history of "stagger lee."

By order of preference:

1. Lost in the Supermarket
2. The Guns of Brixton
3. Lover's Rock
4. Hateful
5. Spanish Bombs
6. Rudie Can't Fail
7. Train in Vain
8. London Calling
9. Clampdown
10. Death or Glory
11. Four Horsemen
12. Jimmy Jazz

The rest of the songs I really don't care about and would probably buy into this being one of the best rock albums in the history of mankind if they weren't there. They're most definitely not bad songs but they kind of reduce my enjoyment for this album whenever I try to listen to it in its entirety. Why so many people here think Koka Kola is amongst the best songs on the album is beyond my comprehension.

guns a brixton but the live version of wrong em boyo upthread is fucking incredible

Clampdown

hy so many people here think Koka Kola is amongst the best songs on the album is beyond my comprehension.

ELEVATAH GOOOOOOOOOOOING UP. (multi-note bass riff)

The clip to 'Rudie' - where's that from?

it's from this.

Four Horsemen

Ah, right - I'd wondered if that was 'Rude Boy'. The review of Hell W10 is very odd, doesn't make it sound worth tracking down at all.

It's worth seeing once and then forgetting about.

It's the last "Clash" project Mick Jones was involved in, for what it's worth.

The Clash's performance is good, but the story was boring. And Ray Winstone was much better in Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.

V. boring choice = "Train in Vain". Something about it's essential lightheartnedness, the way it shows up unbilled at the end almost as an afterthought. Sounded instantly familiar when I finally bought the LP mid-80s, tho I don't recall being aware of it when it was a hit first time round. I'll never know exactly when I first heard it (or approximately, even).
Runner-up: "Guns of Brixton", the opening of which convinced me the vinyl was scratched first coupla times I played it.

More favourites as identified by Strummer ad-lib:

"Sing Michael, sing"
"Elevator goin' up"
"There's that old cheese grater!"
"ARRRGHHHGORRA BUH BHUH DO ARRRRGGGGHHHHNNNN!"

Ha. Almost voted for "Sing Michael, sing."

on the route of the 19 buh-us...

V. boring choice = "Train in Vain". Something about it's essential lightheartnedness, the way it shows up unbilled at the end almost as an afterthought.
OTM. I like it fine, I like it plenty, but couldn't vote for it.

It was an afterthought, wasn't it? It was originally a free 7" for the NME, and they just tacked it on at the end but didn't have time to change the artwork. Unless I'm totally wrong.

i thought the story was that they were embarrassed about having such a poppy pop song and so didn't list it. but that could be just clash apocrypha.

I'd believe either story.

Ray Winstone? I'm confused, are we talking about three different films here? Wikipedia has a whole The Clash on Film section, including one featuring Jordan(?). Which might be worth checking out? I'd like to see their London, but I'd also like to see their legendary energy because it's what I've always heard about and never got (until this thread)

haters welcome.

No poll option for h8rz tho :(

Ray Winstone? I'm confused
No, you're not confused, I'm confused. I should have said "Ray Gange is no Ray Winstone."

By exploiting loopholes in information technology I have managed to cast votes for both 'Hateful' and 'Rudie Can't Fail'. I take my civic duties seriously and I wouldn't normally stoop so low, but I'm sure you will understand.

By the way: fantastic drumming all-round, really, but particularly on 'Rudie'. The way he shifts the rhythms around are quite something.

yeah topper was somethin, until the drugz got him.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

rudie can't fail

In the end, I voted for "Rudie Can't Fail," also. That song almost has me spent after the first minute.

Kinda curious what would win a "worst song" poll

"Revolution Rock"?

I might vote for the title track as worst (which is not to say that it's a bad song).

I'd prolly axe "Jimmy Jazz" myself

another vote for lost in the supermarket, though shit maybe i should have voted for spanish bombs

^^^^ this

<3 spanish bombs so much

the intro to spanish bombs makes me so happy, so quickly.

No one has said Hateful, one of my favorite Clash songs since I was a kid and I'd kill to see it on a karaoke setlist

I voted for 'Hateful'!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

good spread. i'm glad everything got at least one vote.

Whoa -- didn't expect this. Paul and his cheekbones would be pleased with the results.

Awesome turnout, and thanks for turning me onto this album at last.

me 10 seconds ago: wrong 'em boyo's last? i love that song!
me 5 seconds ago: oh ya, i love all these songs

i was corny & voted "train in vain" -- coulda went with "death or glory" tho

I wish "clampdown" did a little better.

This album is so loaded with great songs we could have done an e-mail type poll, where everyone picked their top 5.

Just heard Train In Vain in the supermarket. It made me ridiculously happy - I've spent so much time hating the Clash that I forgot about this song, really. They had the radio pumped up too (unlike the time I heard Paranoid playing faintly over the PA).

Oh yeah, that's why that song is an 'extra' song, it's the song that you hear when you are "Lost In The Supermarket." It's very meta.

A deconstructed version of London Calling just surfaced. Here are the isolated tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCPULalcvgU&feature=share

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGVe0Yh2UAs&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQHLYKATFyc&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxCmHKZsMO8&feature=related

disappointed by the poor show for REvolution Rock. I know its a cover, but then lot of my favourite clash songs are...Armagideon Time, Brand New Cadillac, I fought the Law,

Thank you for those tracks, one of the scariest guitar solos ever.

this album's perfect, one of the permanent candidates for best evah

Have fun, play all four at the same time!

don't know how i would have voted in this. love train in vain, spanish bombs, supermarket, death or glory.