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The White Album vs. London Calling


OrangeSkin

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I just like the way the White Album flows from one song to another. That was their style.

Other bands like the Beach Boys with Pet Sounds and Pink Floyd with Dark Side are the other bands of their time to do it that well.

Today you almost never hear that. Bands make a few good songs, then they need more to fill a CD. Rarely you get a Radiohead who builds a real ALBUM and not a few good tracks loosely put together.

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Disraeli Gears is a great album, but I don't think it's even in the same league as the White Album or London Calling...Fun to listen to, but a few too many duds for my taste.

I chose these two because they're widely considered to the best double albums of all-time. My personal preference is the White Album, although London Calling is an awesome record. The only quip I have with it is that sometimes the music sounds so cheery on songs like Rudie Can't Fail, Lost In The Supermarket, Revolution Rock, etc. that the politically charged lyrics sound kind of misplaced.

The only song on that CD with a degree of seriousness to match the lyrics is Guns of Brixton and maybe the title track.

I guess they were going for irony, but most of it is lost on me. It's just a CD of great, happy sounding songs in my mind...nothing especially heavy.

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London Calling. It's more to my generation.

The Clash had plenty to say, and were living in a very screwed up society. England in the end of the seventies was dismal in terms of class seperation. Overpopulated, not enough jobs, yet the rich got fatter and doted on a bunch of royal do-nothings.

It's enough to breed some contempt, and they had plenty to say about it all.

They also realized their own place in that mess, and saw that they were no longer among the have-nots... which so few ever do. As a result, the lack of hypocrisy was very refreshing.

All that is beside the fact that the Clash were one of the bands that saved rock and roll from the bloated masturbatory exercise it had become. You know what, said the Clash,, you don't need to play 25 minute long guitar solos and 12 minute drum solos and write songs about Ayn Rand or psychedelic eastern philosophy... all you needed to do was pick up the guitar, learn a few chords, and BELT it OUT for all your worth. They helped restorev the vital ESSENCE of rock and roll.

A lesson i never forgot.

~Bang

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all you needed to do was pick up the guitar, learn a few chords, and BELT it OUT for all your worth.

Which was the exact same philosophy as the wretched hair metal bands of the '80s, who are almost universally hated now.

Just think about all the weird instruments put to use on London Calling. It was hardly your straightforward rock album, far from it actually.

I don't believe the Clash were a simple band at all. They were a very serious band and they took themselves very seriously. They weren't joking when they described themselves as "The only band that matters."

They were every bit as serious about their music as the Beatles or Bob Dylan and the like, they just took a different vehicle to get their message across.

That description of the Clash would probably be better suited to the Sex Pistols, a marketing ploy if I ever saw one.

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I agree witht the person who said that songs don't really seem to flow from one to the next as well on <i>London Calling</i> as they do on <i>The White Album</i>. <i>London Calling</i> wasn't a few great songs that were loosely tied together with a bunch of filler, either. It was a collection of 19 great songs that weren't tied together. Part of the Reason for this is that <i>The Clash</i> tried to do so many different styles on the album, but they put their own spin on it which kept the album from being a complete mess, like their next album.

Also, and I'm sure I'll get resistance for this I always do. The Beatles were never really great, only consistently very good. They are more notable for coming out every year with another very good album that's short of greatness, but never releasing anything mediocre or even just good. Except for their very early stuff, but once Rubber Soul came out always very good.

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Fair enough. I agree , they aren't a simple band by any standard. More ther sound I guess. Of course they're serious, I never alluded to them not being serious. But you can be serious without being ponderous.

But come on now, hair bands? There's a difference, i guess, in belting out some rock and roll for all your worth, then screeching some goopy bubble gum with volume. After all all the Rolling Stones did was learn a few chords and belt it out.

I hadn't even considered the hair bands when i wrote that.. I guess that in my mind, when rock and roll is the topic they aren't even worth a thought, so that comparison never entered my head.

I liked th Pistols, and yeah, they were a ploy,, hell, i remember when they came to the states,, they were on the FRONT PAGE of the paper for most of two weeks.

For me, when I was 17 all my friends were into the same old Led Zeppelin, the same old Rush, the same old everything. Those were great, but man, there was very little variety. The group I hung with as a kid basically had like 6 or 7 bands that were the **** and that was IT> (Zep, Rush, Boston, AC/DC, Pink Floyd (rarely)..) i always liked other stuff, too, like I really dug Bruce Springsteen, the Stones, the doors,, etc, but usually i was alone in that...

difference was frowned upon. Get high, put on led Zep 4, or 2112 and that was the end of THAT.

Well, then I turned 18, and the drinking age in Maryland changed, and i got grandfathered in due to my birthdate. None of my friends had made the cutoff. So, here I was, I had a good job, I had money, no bills to speak of, no steady girl,, so I branched out.

i started hanging out in 930, Saba and the Wax Museum. I saw the Ramones, and that was it for me. They were INCREDIBLE. I guess this was about 1982 or so... knocked my socks off. I tried to play some of it for my group of pals one day, they resoundly hated "Rocket to Russia".

I didn't hang out with those guys much after that. Right around then WHFS moved from it's old 102.3 frequency, where I think they had all of about 12 watts... to 99.1 and I could hear it consistently,, and wow.

I know I'll sound like an old fart, but that station used to be the greatest radio station east of the Rocky Mountains.. back in the days of Meg, Mark, Weasel, Bob, man.. they had absolute free reign. Could play anything as long as it was within fcc guidelines. I heard SO much stufff.. so MANY different types of music .. it totally blew me clear of that one-track thinking I was accustomed to.. taught me a band called "Echo and the Bunnymen" can be damn good even if they have a screwy name for example.

Man, that was indeed the Golden Age for me. I love new music, always will as a result of the ten years or so that HFS managed to stave off the corporate crap. I have to have it, or I get antsy. Always, gimme something new.

And now, you just can't find it. Not in the vareity they used to give. WRNR is ok, I guess, if you're a Deadhead, but even their idea of 'progressive' all sort of has the same sound. (I like LaunchCast on Yahoo. I give them the 30 bucks a year for the premium service, and I find it has a terrific variety. I've heard more new bands I like there in the last 12 months than I have in the last five years of local corporate radio. (Check out the Forty Fives.. not really new,, but new to me.. wow!)

To be honest, I liked the Clash's first album better than London Calling, and at the time I REALLY REALLY wished they had put London Calling out as two single albums,, because that BIG F-ing tape used to get eaten by my car stereo all the damn time. I must have bought that cassette probably 6 times.

Well, enough lollygaggin. I've got a cartoon to make.

~Bang

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white

Don't really know the Clash or that album. Did like the one hit the Clash had - but always thought of them as a one hit wonder.

To those who like the clash or London Calling - no offense intended. I just never got into them.

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Originally posted by Mr. Nostril

If you think the clash were a one hit wonder you're obviously an american.

Well, I live in the United States.

I googled the clash. found, of the 2 dozen or so singles they released, I knew two of them.

Two-hit wunder-kind.

And somebody compared them to the beatles? :whoknows:

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Originally posted by Mr. Nostril

That explains it. I assume the two you heard were "Should I stay or should I go" and "Rock the Casbah" which came out after the Clash's glory days too.

You seem to be quite the music buff. Do you play instruments as well? I must ask bc you seem to truly love it.

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Originally posted by Ancalagon the Black

*choke* *choke* *sputter*

Perhaps the greatest punk band of all time--the voice for disenfranchised youth everywhere--and they're TWO-HIT WUNDERKINDEN???

Excuse me while I go find some defibrillators...

:)

I beg thy pardon, sir. I intended no offense. As I stated earlier, I am not very familiar with the Clash. I'm sure their instruments were very nice.

:jk:

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Originally posted by Mr. Nostril

I play guitar and a very little piano. I don't think of myself as very good, but I've occasionally been able to impress people. I was in a crappy band in high school.

You play a very little piano?

Why? Do you have little tiny fingers?

Sorry man, just couldn't pass that one up.

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Greatest punk band is kind of like saying the greatest kicker the Bengals ever had...

The 2 greatest double albums ever are neither of the above. They are Layla and Quadrophenia. You could also put Allman Bros Live at the Fillmore East somewhere up there.

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Originally posted by Riggotoni

Greatest punk band is kind of like saying the greatest kicker the Bengals ever had...

The 2 greatest double albums ever are neither of the above. They are Layla and Quadrophenia. You could also put Allman Bros Live at the Fillmore East somewhere up there.

Quadrophenia is great, but people really need to quit giving clapton props. I mean he was a good guitar player, and that's about it. Even though you're wrong I'll ignore the comment about Punk music.

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The Clash wasn't about hit records.

I'd have to go with White Album as well just because it has some of the best f'in Beatles songs on it. Glass Onion, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, I'm So Tired, Don't Pass Me By, Yer Blues, Mother Nature's Son, Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey, Sexy Sadie, Helter Skelter.

'Nuff said.

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