Clash on Broadway: Disc 2

Whether or not I stick with my original strategy of voting for non-album tracks, my vote here is "Bankrobber."

I'm afraid it's the obvious choice, "London Calling".

“Gates of the West” is a top 10 Clash song for me, not gonna miss a chance to vote for it

how tf do i choose between these

Rudy Can't Fail
The Guns of Brixton
Spanish Bombs
Lost in the Supermarket
The Right Profile
Death or Glory
Clampdown

Safe European Ho.es is my favorite Clash single.

Homes too.

it wasn't a single though, although it would've been a better one than English Civil War

went with Tommy Gun

I know that on paper, there are better, more important songs on this album than Train In Vain. But if I listen to that song once I will listen to it three or five times. It’s perfect.

Give 'em Enough Rope is the one Clash album I haven't heard, but they picked all the good ones from London Calling, except "Wrong 'em Boyo", and I'll vote for "Spanish Bombs".

A friend of a friend used "Lost in the Supermarket" as a prime example of "bad song on a classic album", is that a widely-held view?

It's an insane view

that's crazy, London Calling has a lot of junk in the second half, meanwhile "Lost in the Supermarket" I think is one of the more memorable tunes

voted "Spanish Bombs" though, simply one of the catchiest songs ever written

I know Album #2 had lots of disappointed punters (well, reviewers) but did any album kick the doors down on track 1 like "Safe European Home" ?

One of these:

Guns of Brixton
Spanish Bombs
Death or Glory
Bankrobber

A friend of a friend used "Lost in the Supermarket" as a prime example of "bad song on a classic album", is that a widely-held view?

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, January 29, 2025 10:07 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's an insane view

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 29, 2025 10:11 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'd rank Give 'Em Enough Rope at the bottom of the "proper" Clash albums (Cut the Crap doesn't count), but its highs--"Safe European Home," "Tommy Gun"--are high.

There are seven or eight songs here I could put at number one (I love every single track off "London Calling"). But maybe between "Safe European Home" and "Bankrobber"? Or does that unjustly shut out "London Calling" (the song), which is better known and close to a standard by now?

Fun fact: for some reason "Lost in the Supermarket" is in open E tuning.

I'd rank _Give 'Em Enough Rope_ at the bottom of the "proper" Clash albums (_Cut the Crap_ doesn't count), but its highs--"Safe European Home," "Tommy Gun"--are high.

"Bankrobber." I'd already heard the debut and London Calling, but when I borrowed a cassette of Black Market Clash from an older kid and heard that second side, I was stunned.

Spanish Bombs

Armagideon Time

^^ used quite well in the James Gray movie of the same name.

nobody picking "The Card Cheat"? man that song. I think I gotta go for it.

In which our heroes go full Wall of Sound Phil Spector. There's like multiple pianos, four saxophones...

I love Armagidion Time, but as different as it is from the original, like Pressure Drop I don't think it quite claims a mandate the way something like I Fought the Law does.

Counterpoint: "okay okay don't push us while we're HOT HOT"

"The Card Cheat" is sometimes my favourite Clash song.

I don't believe I have ever even heard "One Emotion"!

Impossible!

Voted Rudy Can't Fail because it brought back memories of great times at an old watering hole

i do love the card cheat and am happy people are caping for it.

my 14-year-old self would urge me to pick "death or glory" so i will

Instinctively went for Rudy. I've sort of forgotten The Clash if that makes any sense; need to remedy that.

I know Pearlman's production of Give'Em Enough Rope pissed people off in 1978, but I don't think it's any better or worse than what came before or after.

I still find it tinny and sludgy. LC sounds pristine.

yeah I cannot stand the sound of that record either

"sludgy" otm

the sheer power of "safe european home" cuts through that for me

and "Tommy Gun," "Guns on the Roof," "Stay Free..."

I don't like the sound of Rope either. It reminds me of X's Ain't Love Grand, an ill-advised attempt to Go Big.

my 14-year-old self would urge me to pick "death or glory" so i will

just another story

I am going to go basic here and vote London Calling

A list absolutely stuffed with total classics that I love to hear, but that one still the classicest

Impossible to really choose, so in the interest of spreading representation, I went with “Clampdown” for giving me the words I needed to hear and remember when I was in school:

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy, get running
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

yeah I love that part

voted Supermarket in direct response to halfway's friend

..of a friend

I don't believe I have ever even heard "One Emotion"!

One of the few included outtakes. I guess it shouldn't be surprising, given this was a band that in the span of seven years put out five studio albums (with one a double and another a triple) plus a later-expanded stray tracks comp, that this box was quite light on rarities (and even then most of that stuff included here were demos, live tracks, and special mixes/edits).

Spanish Bombs, narrowly over Death or Glory.

I liked "Midnight to Stevens", the other significant Clash outtake.

"One Emotion" is ok, but it wouldn't fit on any album or be strong enough for a b-side

I love “Gates of the West”

Pulled the trigger on Bankrobber too early before I saw "Gates...", one of their great and underrated pop songs.

Brutal to have to choose only one of those. Went super conventional with LC

I bought this comp as 3 separate discs from a box of $3 CDs at a flea market in Sydney back in the early 2000s I guess when CDs were still where it was at.

Loved it, the Clash are like Bowie I think inasmuch as it is hard to make a bad Clash compile. The singles LP is good, the Story of the Clash is good, the live one is good, the odds and sods one is good. All of them shed different light on an amazing body of work, and hearing (over?)familiar songs in slightly different contexts/track listings can be cool or even revelatory.

I am getting ahead of myself here but I still remember driving near the beach listening to Disc 3 for the first time - and the moment when Straight To Hell continued past the fade out of the LP edit was AMAZING

I love “Midnight to Stevens”, its almost like a dry run for “Straight to Hell”

Happy to see all the Spanish bombs love. It's always been my favorite off London calling. possibly my favorite clash song.

Bonus points for the mutant Spanish/Italian

Went with Guns of Brixton.

I’m gonna be “that guy” and vote for Train in vain

(Need to get LC on vinyl stat!)

Truly no wrong answers here

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted ‘Bankrobber’ as it’s great, but also for this all time classic piece of Top of the Pops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MebZ3FgpSHs

Just threw a last-minute vote to "The Card Cheat" for the glorious pseudo-bombast of "From the Hundred Years' War to the Crimea/ with a lance and a musket and a Roman spear," one of those brilliant pastiches that manages to parody a specific kind of language and harness all the things that make it effective at the same time.

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

Fair

i forget if i voted for "lost in the supermarket" or "train in vain"

"safe european home" also incredible of course

ha yeah imagine a song as good as Safe European Home only getting two votes and that being a reasonable outcome

but it is

what a band

Excited for the disc 3 poll

I think I know my disc 3 choice already but yeah thrilled to visit the voting booth

Thought "London Calling" would take it the way you were all talking.

Disc 3 poll coming Wednesday, probably. Or maybe tomorrow if I have the time.

Petty sure I already know what I'll vote for for Vol. 3, but maybe I'll surprise myself!!

Yeah my disc 3 vote is locked in as well

Missed this poll but "Bankrobber" is a good winner. "Rudy Can't Fail" was my #1 vote on the Clash poll we did, so I might have voted for that, too.