This is a CLASH POLL service announcement...WITH RESULTS!!!!!! ILX Artist Poll #41

Mick really picked up what was going on in New York dance production around that moment and went nuts with it.

otm. That was a top 10 pick for me, still sounds so urgent and funky and freaked-out.

acts' big singles do usually get the shaft in these polls, but none more unfairly than Rock The Casbah imo

15. Spanish Bombs - 476 pts - 26 votes

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/5830/rvhi.jpg

"Lost in the Supermarket," besides the great hook, has some of Joe's best writing ever. The thing about "the people who lived on the ceiling" screaming and fighting and "hearing that noise was my first ever feeling" -- and "long distance callers make long distance calls/and the silence makes me lonely" -- I mean, lots and lots of people have done middle-class anomie, but not many have made so plaintive and identifiable. He empties a bottle, he feels a bit free, he puts on his giant-hit discotheque album, the pipes in the walls make him noises for company. It could have been a novelty song, but instead it's a Raymond Carver story.

I once saw Spanish Bombs as an audio exhibit at the Imperial War Museum, alongside some period propaganda and a book of Lorca

Love all the old Austin, Texas stuff in the Casbah vid...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ9r8LMU9bQ

did This Is Radio Clash leave a legacy? I'm not aware of it having been sampled, or becoming a club classic or anything

xp Joe's haircut in that video is so now

I love Spanish bombs

I do know the Clash rarely get name checked as early hip-hop adopters, unlike Blondie, say. Sandinista! came out like a month after Autoamerican.

I love Lost in the Supermarket - it made my top ten and Spanish Bombs almost did but came in at #11 for me.

"Magnificent Seven" was used in some early hip hop songs, no? xpost

did This Is Radio Clash leave a legacy? I'm not aware of it having been sampled, or becoming a club classic or anything

― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 1:53 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pardon my ignorance, but how much Clash stuff has been sampled in the post-clearance era? I guess it could be alot, and I'm probably forgetting something, but I seem to recall an interview w/Garbage after their debut wherein they allude to paying an arm & a leg by a major act to clear a sample, which had to be "Train In Vain" on "Stupid Girl" because The Clash were easily the biggest act of the three or four samples on that album.

"To a major act"

"This is Radio Clash" was in my top 10. Love it. I didn't hear it until the late 80s, and for a long time I had no idea where it fit into their chronology. I assumed it was the last thing the original lineup had done (post-Combat Rock, pre-Crap), and while it obviously wasn't, it sounds like it could've been.

"Paper Planes" sampled "Straight to Hell"

<facepalm> Of course...

14. London Calling - 477 pts - 27 votes - 2 #1

http://img547.imageshack.us/img547/6794/gdif.jpg

xp: Yeah, "Lost" describes simultaneous alienation from and comfort from capitalism at the bottom of heap better than just about any song I can think of--it's a warmer "Janie Jones."

Happy to see "London Calling" this low. It's a cracker, and a classic one at that, but enough is enough.

Higher than I thought it would be tbh. Rock The Casbah should be higher

13. White Riot - 494 pts - 29 votes

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/831/0yki.jpg

Some songs I thought were Top 10 locks are falling short!

xpost Post clearance is a different issue. I know the aforementioned Too Much Joy tried to sample the Clash and was denied. Obviously the Beastie Boys pulled it off. Um, Big Audio Dynamite sample the Clash!

Will Smith borrowed virtually the whole of Casbah, but he rapped about the 'year 2G' in it so I'm cool with it

Yeah, I always wondered that. Was it super easy for Mick to get the rights to Clash samples, or did he just have to go through the usual channels?

I remember Joe talking about the "Should I Stay or Should I Go" usage in the Levi's ad, and he said something to the affect of "it was Mick's song so he could do what he wanted with it."

But he and Strummer share writing credit on that; surely Joe could've nixed it (like John Densmore did with a Doors song not too long ago) ?

Well he could have, but I think the point was that he felt it was Mick's and so didn't get in the way.

Ah, got it.

xp: By 1990 "This Is Radio Clash" was still getting regular play as a video/track in Danceteria-type clubs like the 9:30 in D.C. and First Avenue in Minneapolis, a perfect bridge for mixing rap, house, industrial, punk, etc. And it got regular play on MTV well past it's release, like into '84 at least. That's an amazing afterlife, when you think about it. The Clash coming out on CD in '88 must have helped.

Samples aren't always the best chart of influence, but I do wonder if ESG playing that Bonds gig the same month as their release of "UFO" helped make that the most sampled punk record of all time.

12. Clampdown - 521 pts - 25 votes - 1 #1

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/2282/h3un.jpg

so good! who is not voting for clampdown? savages

My #1.

Love the Vanilla Tapes version of "Clampdown," and the Indigo Girls':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0oai2wAj4Q

I stuck "Clampdown" and "London Calling" at the very end of my ballot because I wanted to throw some weight behind other tracks. They're both amazing though and I felt compelled to include them.

i have cranked out this tune before but a pox on any kind of tactical voting in these polls imo

It became tactical when there were 50+ deserving songs. Top 15 in order, and then the rest fall as they may.

No vote from me for Clampdown. Probably my least-favourite on the album, never gets going for me.

11. I Fought the Law - 522 pts - 23 votes

http://img547.imageshack.us/img547/6674/fiqd.jpg

TOP TEN, PEOPLE. WE'RE TO THE TOP TEN!

Never thought this cover was anything special. They did much better covers than "I Fought The Law"

if 20-11 had been their top 10 tracks the clash would have every reason to be delighted with themselves. but there are still ten more tracks to come, and another mile of height atop this precarious punk tower of babel.

i think i fought the law is their best cover, and probably the only one i would say beats the original. the energy of that recording is insane.

but i didn't vote for any covers, seemed wrong

Yeah, I'm probably partial to The Clash's version of I Fought The Law because it was the first band I heard do the song. Other versions (including the original) sound good. The Clash's sounds great.

Energetic, yes, but doesn't add anything to the Bobby Fuller version's sneer. It doesn't feel like a Clash song the way some of the other covers fit them.

i think i fought the law is their best cover, and probably the only one i would say beats the original. the energy of that recording is insane.

― Roberto Spiralli, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 4:06 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^this. I *think* the opening drums (which go from "oh, this'll be fun" to "OH SHIT I better duck") are doubled, but on the live versions, Topper's sound is just as charging and heavy.

I couldn't love I Fought The Law any more than I do, yet it's still only my no.3

white riot should be higher imo