I haven’t featured a song from The Clash’s classic album London Calling since July of 2009, way back at Song of the Day #357. I guess the Random iTunes Fairy thought that was too long.
London Calling is indeed a great album, considered one of the best of all time by many critics. It has the urgency and directness of great punk music but the ear candy melodicism of pop radio. It’s not an album I revisit often but it’s one I always enjoy when I do.
The #1 album on Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll for 1981 was The Clash’s Sandinista!, the triple-album follow-up to their heralded London Calling. The album was released in December of 1980, just missing the cut for that year’s poll.
Interestingly, it was London Calling — released in January 1980 in the States — that topped the 1980 poll. Critics were apparently in a Clash state of mind at the turn of the decade.
My first exposure to the classic Clash album London Calling was in a Rolling Stone issue on the ‘Best Albums of the 80s.’ I was familiar with most of their selections — including (in order) Prince’s Purple Rain, U2’s The Joshua Tree, Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, Paul Simon’s Graceland, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A., Michael Jackson’s Thriller, R.E.M.’s Murmur and Tracy Chapman’s debut album.
Meet Me In Montauk 