'London Calling' by The Clash (1979)
An anecdote before I begin:
My father's parents were crazy. Absolutely cuckoo. There's no telling what they'd do. By the way, if you get that reference I just made, good for you. If not, it's alright, it was pretty damn obscure. Anyway, my grandparents on my father's side. Once a week they would send him to the woods outside their house to a prominent boulder atop a hill, in a clearing. You can get there by a little path that starts at the back yard. My father named it 'Catastrophe Path.' I would pretend I was an army guy with my friends on that path. He and his father would go out when my Dad was a kid. Kind of a weird father-son bonding thing. They'd bring with them a shovel and a backpack full of non-perishable food items and such. You know, the kind of stuff you'd find in a bomb shelter.
What were they doing out there? Well, my grandparents were really into the Cold War. Let's just say they still don't trust anybody to this day whose nationality is that of a former Warsaw-Pact nation. Basically any 'commies.' They were burying food supplies in case of an attack. There's about twenty years worth of canned goods somewhere in the woods of Rhode Island.
The paranoia of the Cold War is a strange chapter of American history. But that sense of paranoia hadn't just infected the United States, it pervaded the entirety of the West. In the late 70s, Britain was going through massive social upheavals, riddled with unemployment and social unrest. Punk had arrived like a meteor hurtling from space. The Sex Pistols were well on their way to imploding, and it was up to another band, led by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, to take up the torch. But these guys weren't the off-their-asses drunk kind of anarchists that the Pistols were. Instead, they were the manifestation of a righteous fury, railing against the injustices they saw in the world.
In 1979, destruction was looming over The Clash, just like the threat of nuclear destruction loomed over the world. Their next album would be make or break, a final roll of the dice. It made them. That album was called 'London Calling' and it would be an apocalyptic gospel railing against mass consumerism, police brutality, the church, and the plight of the lower classes and selling yourself and working for the man. Giving up your young ideals and selling out to the system that you so fervently defied. It'll eventually happen to us all. The Clash understood that, yet still fought against it. A noble effort. The death of punk years later would signify that 'the only band that matters' lost the war. But God bless them for trying.
These nineteen songs build off of the momentum of each other until by the end, you truly feel like you may be on a hellish train, leading off the edge of a cliff, falling down into oblivion, and for some reason you're welcoming that because you've just been brought on a tour of society which proves that this whole fight may be in vain, which justifies the title of the song 'Train in Vain', possibly the catchiest song on the album and one of my favorites. What a better song to signify selling out and cashing in your ideals than a serenade to a lover who has betrayed you. You didn't stand by me, no not at all.
There are a few other highlights on this album, that is, in truth, filled with highlights. I could see any song on this album being someone's favorite song of the album. For me, the highlights are 'London Calling' a hellish proclamation, 'Lost in the Supermarket' a song against consumerism, yet sung in a sadly resigned way that seems to indicate that Mick Jones knows he can't stop the machine, 'The Guns of Brixton', possibly the coolest bass line of all time and a hellish sounding reggae song about police brutality. If you play guitar, you'll know how when you play reggae you play on the upstroke so that it sounds happier and upbeat. The way The Clash play it, add in some studio effects and the upbeat upstroke sounds like a cocaine addled sound from hell. Another highlight is 'Death or Glory', a story about an old punk who traded in his ideals(were they ever ideals to begin with, or did he just trade in one life of being a criminal to being a bitter lower class man filled with resentment against a family who resents him just as much) to become a father who hits his kids, love and hate tattooed across his hands. Death or glory? There are many ways to die, I guess. Slow ways. Then there's 'The Card Cheat', I don't want to describe it, it's just beautiful. Finally there's 'Train in Vain', a romantic song about being betrayed by a lover.
So, in the end, what else is there to say about this album, except, revolutionary?