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

Jimmy Jazz! love love love. And Wrong em Boyo is fkn neat as hell

45. Charlie Don't Surf - 142 pts - 12 votes

http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/3021/lrbd.jpg

44. What's My Name - 145 pts - 10 votes

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4961/ztw7.jpg

'jimmy jazz' just barely made it onto my poll on the strength of strummer's wonderful vocal -- i love the moments where he doesn't even sound like he's singing words, just making random guttural noises.

43. This is England - 148 pts - 10 votes

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/2391/zwod.jpg

^^^ in my top ten. As a last gasp it's glorious.

I didn't vote for it but kinda regretting that now. Great stuff

Strummer surveying the wreckage of Thatcher's England over the synths that have invaded the marketplace -- and it doesn't sound reactionary. It's like good Mekons.

43. The Prisoner - 151 pts - 8 votes

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/9517/uy36.jpg

"Jimmy Jazz" was a late cut. Almost made it for being the first song played on their first Chicago show, with Mick sneering, "So, Chicago, this is the home of the blues, right?"

Last one for today...

41. Hitsville U.K. - 157 pts - 12 votes

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8514/04yo.jpg

Nice! Thought this was one of my weird picks, so wasn't sure it'd place (though apparently it was a single).

Hitsville UK is terrible! I like This Is England though.

i have always been baffled by the appeal of hitsville uk

I gave Hitsville a big bump -- top 5 for me.

It didn't make my ballot, but I can definitely see the appeal. Probably the sweetest-sounding song they ever did.

First time I heard it was on the radio, and I didn't immediately recognize it as the Clash, but the drumming tipped me off. In addition to his many other talents, Topper had such a great and disctinctive sound on the kit.

Yes -- one of my favorite drummers of all time.

Hitsville's pretty yuk to me, I have a hard time listening very hard at all beyond just generally recoiling

Mick has this thing where the more he's involved in a song, the more he scrubs off all the stuff that makes you like the Clash and you're left with this sheeny stuff that *sort of* sounds like the Clash, that you kinda tolerate because aw it's Mick innit

I like that he's trying to nod to Motown but uggggggggggggggggh

Hitsville, it makes me nauseous

"Hitsville" is initially attractive but sounds rather coy, thanks to Ellen Foley's non-vocal and the arrangement.

i'll cop to having hitsville at the bottom of my ballot. i just remember putting on sandinista and being amazed and appalled and then more amazed. like how did this band make this song and put it on this record. so, y'know, kudos for just not giving a fuck what anyone thinks. punk rock.

like, young rogermexico learned a valuable lesson that day about what it really means to be punk as fuck.

Isn't that exactly the kind of *people's vocal* that was prominent in the music they're praising in the song, though? I don't find it coy.

xp

but I can't praise it for its intentions

I'll praise it for its execution, actually, which I think is fine. It's an aesthetic of charm in just regular humanity, I think.

I think my problem with "Hitsville" is it thinks good music can exist without "smarmy eels" and "slimy deals," and Foley's vocal is precisely what I don't want to hear on a hit.

And, you know, creativity over athletic gifts or accomplishments.

xp

Foley's vocal makes the sentiment sound affectless, which is even more damaging. I don't know what Strummer would've done with the lyric tbh

I love Hitsville, voted for it somewhere in the 20s. I think it's funny, and meant to be.

I like that he's trying to nod to Motown but uggggggggggggggggh

TS: "Hitsville UK" vs. "A Town Called Malice"

TS: mouth vs marblemouth

I like the misguided romance and sonic clatter of "Hitsville" more than anything placing so far off the Cost of Living EP ("Groovy Times," "Gates of the West," "Capital Radio 2"), where they make fun of disco and Chic's "Good Times." That they embraced both on London Calling and Sandinista! (by way of "Rapper's Delight") a small span of months later is one more thing to love about them.

These graphics are awesome.

Though I gotta clear this up: Is Joe screaming, "I'm the one that I want" at the end of "Capital Radio 2," 'cause that's hilarious.

I've had 8 place so far, with "Car Jamming" in my top 5 and "The Prisoner" falling just outside my top 10. "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" is the song off Rope that most obviously points to London Calling -- the raucous New Orleans rhythm, the sense it was recorded at a shouty basement party.

yeah, going to read this thread now.

I didn't vote in this, but I'm enjoying the hell out of this thread; thanks for doing it guys.

I think for every song result so far I've lit up and went "I love this song!" Images are cool, too. It's easy to forget, because I hardly ever listen to them these days, but I love this band so fucking much.

xxxp i always assumed that's what he said

It's like good Mekons

So OTM.

This is a band I love so much I've almost by design not dug beneath the surface. LIke, I haven't learned the lyrics, or tracked down live shows, or looked for clips and stuff. I've lived with these albums for decades now, and they often still feel like the first time when I put them on.

yeah I'm the same way

I really got into them in my late teens and read books/tracked bootlegs down etc (most of which I don't remember now). What's been really great these past few weeks is paying attention to the lyrics for the first time in so long. I don't think it clicked just how global Sandinista! (yeah, the name, i know i know) and, really, just how good they are.

I like how much of the Ramones I can hear in their first album now that I am listening to it with more ~context~

yeah, 'janie jones' and 'career opportunities' in particular sound pretty ramones-y to me.

totally!

One thing that's neat about Sandinista is when there's a great song buried in the muck someplace. I forgot "Up In Heaven" and "Corner Soul" even existed until a couple years ago. I keep discovering things in that record. I still remember when Street Parade jumped out at me as being a great song. It just happened one day.

And Give 'Em Enough Rope got cheated, but Safe European Home is their best album opener and All The Young Punks is their best album closer. Wish all their albums sounded like it too. Production is great.

Rope gets short shrift for some reason and I've never really worked out why

Give 'Em Enough Rope sounds fantastic blasting loudly in a bar.

i want to go to that bar right now

i vote we move this poll to that bar & finish it there, all in favor

aye