This critical review of London Calling features rare live performances, alongside interviews with legendary filmmaker and DJ Don Letts (who toured with The Clash), and analysis from a leading team of rock journalists and critics.
London Calling is the third studio album by English rock band the Clash. It was originally released as a double album in the United Kingdom on 14 December 1979 by CBS Records, and in the United States in January 1980 by Epic Records.
The Clash recorded the album with producer Guy Stevens at Wessex Sound Studios in London during August, September and November 1979, following a change in management and a period of writer's block for songwriters Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. Bridging a traditional punk rock sound and a new wave aesthetic, London Calling reflects the band's growing interest in styles beyond their punk roots, including reggae, rockabilly, ska, New Orleans R&B, pop, lounge jazz, and hard rock. Themes include social displacement, unemployment, racial conflict, drug use, and the responsibilities of adulthood.
The album was a top ten chart success in the UK, and its lead single "London Calling" was a top 20 single. The album has sold over five million copies worldwide, and was certified platinum in the US for sales of one million. It was also met with widespread critical acclaim and has retrospectively been named one of the greatest albums of all time. On Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, London Calling ranked eighth in the 2003 and 2012 editions, and sixteenth in the 2020 edition. In 2010, it was one of ten classic album covers from British artists commemorated on a UK postage stamp issued by the Royal Mail.
London Calling has since been considered by many critics to be one of the greatest rock albums of all time, including AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, who said that it sounded more purposeful than "most albums, let alone double albums". "This epic double album, from its iconic sleeve to its wildly eclectic mash-up of styles, is surely the quintessential rock album", wrote BBC Music journalist Mark Sutherland. In Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), Christgau called it the best double album since the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. (1972) and said it expanded upon, rather than compromised, the Clash's driving guitar sound in a "warm, angry, and thoughtful, confident, melodic, and hard-rocking" showcase of their musical abilities. According to the English music writer Dave Thompson, London Calling established the Clash as more than "a simple punk band" with a "potent" album of neurotic post-punk, despite its amalgam of disparate and occasionally disjointed musical influences. Don McLeese from the Chicago Sun-Times regarded it as their best album and "punk's finest hour", as it found the band broadening their artistry without compromising their original vigor and immediacy. PopMatters critic Sal Ciolfi called it a "big, loud, beautiful collection of hurt, anger, restless thought, and above all hope" that still sounds "relevant and vibrant". In a review of its 25th anniversary reissue, Uncut wrote that the songs and characters in the lyrics cross-referenced each other because of the album's exceptional sequencing, adding that "The Vanilla Tapes" bonus disc enhanced what was already a "masterpiece".
Director: The Creative Picture Company
Stars: Don Letts, John Robb, Pat Gilbert
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