The Clash: Classic or Dud

I can't tell if the "Strummer can't sing!" posts are serious or not. I mean, OMG WTF that Albert Ayler sure hit a lot of wrong notes! And that Thelonious Monk, his chords are just incorrect!

Anyway, classic. Given their actual origins/upbringings, the whole "student union types" thing applies to them about as accurately as it does to Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Because on the first records the sound so terribly thin (so weak in comparison with say The Pistols)

Yeh, maybe the first album could do with a "Raw Power" style remastering but the songs still stand up. For me, 'Deny' captures the sound of hopelessness and nilhism more than anything the Pistols did.

Tommy Gun
safe Euro home
Complete control
White man....
garageland

classics

It's the reverence that does my head in.

the Ramones meant way more to me. As a Yankophile, that shouldn't be a surprise.

I hate shit Clash with a vengeance- the stuff that' made' them - 'Should I stay...' and that other shitter

Rock the Fucking Casbah - that one. DESTROY

"Give 'em Enough Rope" tho, apart from Safe European Home, is a load shit.

"of"

"this is radio clash" is one of my favorite videos ever. I grew up outside of nyc in the 70s/80s, and it captures in shorthand something essential about the feel of those times. a gritty vibrancy coupled with hopeless paranoia. yeah, they were posturing twats but all is forgiven in moments like these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-t52zc8Ex4

I missed
'I fought The Law' from my shitty list. You out here must know what I mean? Fucking annoying overprived clash types

"Fucking annoying overprived clash types" - you're writing this from a Zapatista training camp, right?

^ do not understand? Is that a political statement? To change the world.

wasn't this kind of thing understood about the clash from the beginning? even in lipstick traces greil marcus calls the clash "the Yes to the pistols' impenetrable No" or some such, which is a polite way of saying what you're saying.

i think it's possible to understand the clash as sentimentalists, pretenders, counter-cultural dickriders, etc, and still want to bump them all the time. in their compromised way they were still very much the real thing, maybe even moreso

Soukesian
I quite like the Clash
Just get a bit annnoyed about their canonical status. Apologies.Each to their own

(not that lipstick traces is exactly "the beginning" of the discourse surrounding punk, but yougetme)

The Big Three: Metal Box, Black Market Clash, Pink Flag

The Big Three: Metal Box, Black Market Clash Cut, Pink Flag

If you're gonna start listing shit like Wire

Eddie and the Hot Rods
Eater
Johnny Moped
Adverts
Prefects
Suburban Studs
Lurkers
ATV

WIRE WERE FUCKING ACE.
Beyond those three

and the Boys.
top boys

i think it's possible to understand the clash as sentimentalists, pretenders, counter-cultural dickriders, etc, and still want to bump them all the time. in their compromised way they were still very much the real thing, maybe even moreso

^this

dylan was a big faker too but he either faked it so well or was so talented that it didn't matter.

next thing you'll tell me sid's name wasn't really vicious

but big ups for the johnny moped love

I'm a Hard Loving Mad ,Ted

Fer - re exasperation with 'canonical status', I totally understand. Actually feel that way about Wire myself, but let's not get into THAT.

x post
too true. Seriously

but listening to an entire album by them is fucking tiring.

-- Edward III

london calling??

especially london calling. by side 3 it's just fatiguing. woo hoo, stick around for "the card cheat"! the earnestness gets wearying, and frankly it's a mystery how they can make a 3:30 song feel like it's dragging on forever.

it's weird cause I'm not a clash hater, it's just that I can only take them in small doses.

its a mystery to me how you can feel like that (about LC)! the first half is a lot stronger, definitely (like, insanely, possibly unprecedentedly strong) but the 2nd half is still pretty great- its always been one of my favorite albums, & definitely my favorite clash album: there isn't the same degree of sameness as the first two or the schizophrenia of sandanista; maybe that's what you mean by 'earnestness' - they were definitely going for a beatles-like masterwork with this one, lots of mood & stylistic variance centered around seriously catchy songs.

so as far as the title track is conerned: are most of the haters here old-school punk fans who think LC was hypocritical, in that sense?

The Clash are the greatest band of all time

"Give 'em Enough Rope" tho, apart from Safe European Home, is a load shit.

Wrong.

The Clash are the greatest band of all time

-- admrl

quite possibly yeah

they were definitely going for a beatles-like masterwork with this one

fool's gold

as in impossible to replicate so dont try or as in not worth replicating because it sucks in the first place? i disagree 100% either way

that's cuz you haven't listened to enough johnny moped

I can imagine the clash sitting around thinking "man, let's go for the masterwork with this one" and then you sitting around listening to london calling thinking "man, what a masterwork this is" and that's a dynamic I can't really get wrapped up in but I'm glad you all are happy together

ive never listened to johnny moped (?!?) but will do

but in other words, youre mad because the clash mightve consciously decided to make a great album qua album? doesnt that seem kinda silly?

mad? no, just not that interested in an idea of greatness that never struck me as all that great in the first place. and it's not some intellectual exercise for me - the things that excite you about london calling seem to be the same qualities that instinctively make me reach for the eject button.

their girlfriends were making much more interesting music than they were at this point. one "newtown" is worth ten of "train in vain".

thing is im 100% a singles guy: i think whats remarkable about LC is that practically ever song is killer. THATS what it excites me about it - the fact that they all manage to somehow congeal while representing an astonishing kind of variety makes it all the more incredible to me. the accessibility of the album is ridiculous, i can play it for almost literally anyone & get a positive response. although its possible i guilt them into it w/ my enthusiasm.

xp id like to know more about that too! (btw i love 'train in vain', seems to get a bad rap as filler)

http://commercialzone.blogspot.com/2008/07/slits-cut-1979.html

Granted, some tracks (This is Radio Clash, The Magnificent 7) were really truly terrible.

'Combat Rock' hasn't aged well

CHALLENGING OPINIONS

Give 'em Enough Rope is just weak, man. Produced by someone out of Blue Oyster Cult for a start, and it also features 'Stay Free' - perhaps the most embarrasing song they ever recorded.

I can imagine the clash sitting around thinking "man, let's go for the masterwork with this one"

Yeah, that'd be why their producer threw chairs at them while they were recording. I believe George Martin employed the EXACT SAME TECHNIQUE on Sgt. Pepper.

Produced by someone out of Blue Oyster Cult for a start,

No, produced by BOC's producer, Sandy Pearlman. Do you hate the production, or just the association with (gasp!) BOC?

No, produced by BOC's producer, Sandy Pearlman. Do you hate the production, or just the association with (gasp!) BOC?

A bit of both to be honest. I dont hate BOC, just think it was a misjudged choice of producer, but maybe the same was thought about Guy Stevens producing London Calling. I can't say all of the production's to blame, as rickity as it is, it just sounds like a group who can't be bothered for the most part. Good album cover though.

Didn't one of BOC go out with Patti Smith?

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I wished they had attempted a dub crossover thing much sooner, rather than merely hinting at it on the first LP then pussying out.

I was meant to be seeing Johnny Moped next weekend but the fucker cancelled.

that sucks, but I'm in the US so my chances of seeing him here are slim to nil.

I was just blasting V.D. Boiler when I was doing the washing up the other night.

"Produced by someone out of Blue Oyster Cult for a start,"

Where I come from this is definitely a good thing.

Yes, BOC's guitarist/keyboardist/weirdo Allen Lanier dated Patti Smith. She wrote a lot of lyrics on some early BOC albums.

I can imagine the clash sitting around thinking "man, let's go for the masterwork with this one" and then you sitting around listening to london calling thinking "man, what a masterwork this is" and that's a dynamic I can't really get wrapped up in but I'm glad you all are happy together

I don't LOVE the Clash or London Calling, and the record's relentlessly promoted "greatness" does tend to keep me at arm's length -- but it's nonetheless very hard to deny. And I don't think it helps anything to throw Johnny Moped or Cycledelic up against the Clash/LC. Different bands, different visions of "punk". Both great, but neither eclipses the other.