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Vinyl love: The Clash “London calling”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Clash
Album Title: London calling
Year released: 1979
Year reissued: 2013
Details: 2 x180 gram

The skinny: As part of my efforts to increase my presence on my own Instagram page, I’ve created a few series that I’ve been trying to maintain on a regular basis. One of these is my Wednesday album cover collages, where, every week, I choose a theme upon which to gather a handful of album covers all in one shot. This past Wednesday, the theme was “Iconic” and of course, this very album cover was included in the photo. You can’t get much more iconic than what is arguably the best album by “the only band that matters”. Released in England in 1979, and in 1980 across the pond in the US, “London calling” was The Clash’s third studio LP. The double album includes many of the band’s most popular tunes – from the famous hidden track, “Train in vain”, to the Paul Simonon sung, “Guns of Brixton”, from the fun “Lost in the supermarket” to the anthemic title track. The reissue I purchased at one of my favourite locals, early on in my collecting days, just happens to be remastered and pressed to two 180 grams discs. But you can’t really go wrong here because it’s punk. The sound is secondary to Strummer’s messages and the band’s thunderous energy.

Standout track: “London calling”

7 replies on “Vinyl love: The Clash “London calling””

Oh, yes it is. Such amazing cover art.

Incidentally, I was just listening to a podcast today by one of Canada’s great alternative-music-ologists, Alan Cross, and the subject was of album art and how we are losing the magic of it given the rise of streaming (https://open.spotify.com/episode/4wTeV6650APH8DUj2bSBV1?si=2-H417hkQ56Em1Qf2TvZdg). In this podcast, he talked about how the photo on the London Calling cover of Paul Simonon smashing his bass to pieces was a complete accident and it’s become one the best known rock and roll photos of all time.

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