Paste's Top 18 Clash Songs + another 18 worth your time

via

You can view them here. They have pretty good, informed reasons for each one, but since most of them were released as singles or are the ones every talks about (though I'd definitely put "Straight to Hell" at number 1--it's #18 on their list), I thought I'd compile a list of 18 more Clash songs that are worth your time.*

*(Though of course, my ultimate list is the top [however-many-songs-the-Clash-made-altogether] Clash songs since they're all worth your while. . . yes, even "Mensforth Hill" (ok maybe not), and yes, I suppose except those last 12 tracks, at the end, though I think I've drank the "This Is England"-is-a-good/(ok)-track Kool-Aid.)

And honestly, these are in the order they come to mind, numbered only so you know that there is actually 18 of em without having to count. (links to Youtube.)

18. Cheat - this is such a nice mean song, and punk rockers have been trying to figure out how to do that ever since the Clash did it. The best they've done is drop f-bombs, posture, and bitch about stuff. Take the Rancid cover of this one-- good cover, I like it, but even a band known for being lyrically & image-wise meaner, cruder and more obviously "angry" than the Clash still can't make this song as much as a fuck-off as the Clash do.

17. The Card Cheat - the Clash do melodrama.

16. London's Burning - the Clash do ennui and answer the question: is it possible to be angry about ennui? It is for the Clash.

15. Something About England - this one semi-chokes me up the way "Straight to Hell" does each time, a thousand times after the first time. Plus the Strummer-Jones dialogue play works wonders for the story-telling format, giving the listener a chance to experience what made this duo so dynamic. This is one of the countless Clash songs that seem prescient to the issues of today while really serving as a reference point for what has and hasn't changed since their heyday.

14. Hitsville UK -"2 min 59." There has never been another punk song like this. If there was, it would just "sound like Hitsville UK."

13. The Sound of Sinners - The Paste article, in choosing "Train in Vain" as their number 1, says "For a band whose legacy is typically derived from rebellious and political-minded attitude, “Train In Vain” represents The Clash’s musical dexterity—the most overlooked, yet defining factor of these legendary punk rockers." For those of us who listen to Clash songs besides Train in Vain, London Calling, Lost in the Supermarket, and Should I Stay or Should I Go (which are all great songs, too--some of the greatest--and funnily enough, even that selection alone proves Paste's point) this characteristic of versatility is taken for granted, so it's interesting to see this pointed out. Anyway, I think "Hitsville UK" and "Sound of Sinners" are two good examples of the group's dexterity-- the first time I heard "Hitsville UK" on the radio, I would never in a million years have guessed who did it.

12. Rock the Casbah - I wrote a paper on this in college. I don't remember what it was about, if it was about anything besides setting the lyrics in an historical/theological context (I remember something about the revolutionary spirit of Islam, which is, today, suddenly very relevant), but this is just one example of the Clash's being so rooted in the issues of their times without becoming dated.

11. The Leader - "The people must have something good to read on a Sunday." The lyrics and imagery in this one are so dense it's easy to forget this song clocks in at well under 2 minutes.

10. I'm Not Down - Yeah! There is a Clash song for every mood.

9. This Is Radio Clash - Joe Strummer might not be a great rapper, but he's better than Debbie Harry, to take an example from the same year. This one's a good example of the Clash's ability to take what was then the cutting-edge of music and put their own spin on it. (The other way to look at Debbie Harry's rapping is that she makes Joe Strummer look like a grade-A rapper. . .)

8. Sean Flynn - I've always had a soft spot for this one. . . it's quite haunting.

7. Car Jamming - "I thought I saw Lauren Bacall/I swear/Hey fellas/Lauren Bacall."

6. Stay Free - This one gets me every time, too. A nice Mick one. "Step lightly. Stay free."

5. Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad - this part always cracks me up: "AN' THEN THERE CAME THE NIGHT OF THE GREATEST EVER RAID/THEY ARRESTED EVERY DRUG THAT HAD EVER BEEN MADE." Best raid ever? Commentary on drug policy that still rings true today? In America? The Clash could see the future? (The song was about undercover cops, trained as hippies, having to drop tons of acid in a sting operation in Wales. I imagine that went from being best job ever to worst job ever pretty quickly.)

4. Charlie Don't Surf - I like Robert Duvall, okay?

3. Deny - A nice middle-finger of a song.

2. City of the Dead - You don't hear about this one much, but it's truly a great one, a confection of a punk song.

1. Midnight Log - same reason as 14 & 13. Another song whose complicated, non-stop lyrics make it hard to believe it's only, in classic punk form, a two-minute track.

Awww. 18 isn't enough. Any you guys would add? Think of it this way: someone comes up to you on the street. You figure they're not asking for change so you stick around long enough to find out they've just listened to London Calling, thought it was fab, and want to know what is the next track you'd recommend that will sink the Clash fan hook in forever. So in this highly improbably situation, what track would you name?

Photo modified from original found at Clashphotorockers.free.fr

1.2011 Top 25

I've decided that if I can remember, I'm going to start posting my Top 25 (according to ifuckUtunes) at the end of each month. Even if it's totally embarrassing. This time around, it's not horribly interesting as I still have yet to put all my music on my iTunes. I've only got 141 songs on it at the moment, and this record of songs has only been being logged since sometime in November, I think. I also only use the program maybe once a week, mostly cos there's nothing on it. (Hopefully talking about all this will inspire me to get out ye olde harde-drive and remedy the situation.)

"Gladys Horton, Member Of Motown's Marvelettes, Has Died"

The Marvelettes' Beechwood 45789:

Charlie Louvin, Country Singer, Dies at 83

"David Watts" The Kinks ≤ The Jam

The Kinks - -

The Jam - -

There's something about the Jam's version that makes me come back to it more often than the Kinks' original. It might be the slightly "harder" sound, but both are honestly great in my book so it's kind of a toss-up.

"I Started a Joke" - Bee Gees < Faith No More

I think it might just be that I really like the Faith No More video. . . but either way Mike Patton has an excellent voice.

oh no he di'nt

So I absolutely don't agree FOR SURE that Van Halen's cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" is superior to the original. What? What?! And Eric Clapton's "I Shot the Sheriff" makes me wanna shoot myself after I've taken down the sheriff (but not the deputy.) But I do agree with this list of "10 Covers Better than the Original" on "Hallelujah" and "Hurt"-- while I don't think Johnny Cash's cover is "better," I think he transcended the original material and made it firmly his own. I don't even listen to the NIN original these days.

NOW. On the other hand, coming up, I'll be posting a few covers I think at least rival the original, if not surpass em.

omg she is a 100-year old BALLER

ok, 73, but still, this is from last year y'all--

Stuck in the Middle With You

Heard about this on NPR the other day while driving to the mall, I think. Wow, yeah, good idea, driving in early January near the mall. Stealers Wheel vocalist Gerry Rafferty had passed away, and honestly, I had no idea he was associated with the band, a band I don't know by name, but like many people my age are instead intimately familiar with thanks to that Michael Madsen scene in Reservoir Dogs. So I felt a little guilty, especially because the other song they played by him made my toes curl (that 80s sax passive-aggressive synthesized sort of thing.) But on the other hand, this track is a perfect little rock track, so we can blame the 80s for that other one, and it's hard not to get the urge to cut someone's ear off bogey a little when you hear it.

Here is a much more knowledgeable posting on Mr Rafferty's passing from Berkeley Place, along with some covers of his work.

how amazing would this be?

In the meantime, Big Boi is intent on scratching two items off his wish list. The first involves music. "Kate Bush -- that's my dream collaboration," he says adamantly. "I'd do a whole album with Kate Bush. I'm looking for her right now."

i'd never steal from santa

christmas caroling with GWAR

BING MOTHERFUCKING CROSBY

I'm sure you've seen this floating around. At first I was a little nervous because, as you know, I have a deep and abiding love for Bing Crosby, and will violently defend him, alcoholism and all (not that you have to do this in a world where top 40 hits talk about gargling with liquor, as far as I can tell.) Anyway, it turned out that Will Ferrel and John C Reilly have made what is a rather sweet homage to the original-- very wackadoo if you think about it-- video while still leading up to a pretty funny payoff. Turns out you can make a joke very funny with only a few simple elements, and not a fart in sight. Because remember, you cunts. He's Bing Fucking Crosby pal okay?

Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy with Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly from Will Ferrell

holiday in cambodia

The more I think about this song, the more problematic I find it. Don't worry; it's not about being PC. It's just that Khmer Rouge-era Cambodia was such a shockingly weird and tragic place. The leadership operated under secrecy, they were doing things like abolishing money and clearing out the cities. The numbers from their secret prison, S-21, rare somewhere around 7 survivors for the 17,000 who went through. You had a .04% chance of getting out of there. I was assigned Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison by David Chandler to read in school and I couldn't make it all the way through. It was that disturbing.

So the song is ostensibly about rich kids in the US acting in a self-righteous manner by professing their empathy and understanding of plights less fortunate than theirs, all while driving around on the East Coast in their dad's fancy car that I couldn't even tell you the maker of.

So you been to school
For a year or two
And you know you've seen it all
In daddy's car
Thinkin' you'll go far
Back east your type don't crawl

You're right, Jello Bifra. Nobody likes those people. And you say it in such a catchy way. He next suggests that these kids should check out Cambodia in order to see how bad it can really be:

Well you'll work harder
With a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers
Till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake.

One problem is is that that last line there is a little too Orientalist for my taste. It almost says, Oh those wacky Cambodians. They put heads on stakes just like those Polynesians do. And the Indians did. And the Vikings. It's a classic trope of barbarianism, along with, like, not wearing shoes and going months without bathing-- and barbarians, by it's etymology, is simply the group in opposition to us. That's lazy-- which is my main problem with slogans in general; it's a distillation of complex issues into a single, sensationalist soundbite that lets people be lazy about understanding those complex issues that are now lost the moment you put it on a shirt or tote bag.

In fact, the cover of the single is a picture from a 1976 student massacre in Thailand. Thailand is not the same country as Cambodia. They might all look the same, but they're not. Maybe they're the ones that put heads on stakes?

But really what it is is that the lyrics suggest that Jello Biafra's main concern is not describing the problem with the situation in Cambodia, or even exposing it to the casual listener. It's about how the existence of that situation is beneficial to him because it let's him stick it to the fat capitalist cats he has problems with. He is doing the same thing that he accuses the people in the song of doing: using the plight of others to prove a point about himself. Here he is saying that his awareness makes him superior and thus righteous. This is exactly what he says the kids in the song are doing. If we were really going to look at Cambodia under Pol Pot, you could say that that toothless bum living under the overpass has it better than the people over there. Because it's true. That shit was fucked. up. Maybe we all need to be sent back in time over there to truly realize how lucky we are-- the kids on the crew team at the Ivy Leagues, the suburban moms in their SUVs, the punk kids in their squats. But I don't think that's how people learn or solve their problems. If you spend all your time comparing your situation to the desperate conditions of others, you can't get things done.

I thought of this while reading the comments under a Youtube video of the Foo Fighters & Serj Tankian of System of a Down covering the song at the VMAs. The argument, as usual, was how nobody in the audience knew the song & they suck. First off, who cares. If you're worried about who listens to what music, and that's how you decide your tastes, you're giving them an awful lot of control-- you are giving them the power-- and not paying attention to the merits of the actual art. But it also showed me that this song hasn't sparked discussion about Cambodia, history, or even class divides. People were more interested in whether seeing this vid got people into the Dead Kennedys rather than wondering if they became interested in the Cambodia of the title-- a name perhaps only used by the song in a sensationalist, exploitative way? (Second nature to the band in light of their name.) The discussion was thus concerned with labels and constructs and superiority-- could this be the case because that's all the song is about, and the lyrics and phrases and name dropping is simply to rile people up rather than to make them think?

It's still relevant today-- some of the leaders are only just now being put on trial.

It's also too bad that kids today have taken the lyrics seriously and decided to slum it in order to gain whatever cred your scene gets you.

Play ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin' that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slums got so much soul

That's what half the kids I knew in NYC were about-- adopting mannerisms, living habits, and addictions in order to prove that they haven't "seen it all/In daddy's car." That they've seen it at ground zero instead. You're still doing it in "daddy's car" if he's paying for your rent, coke habit, & credit card. These are all addictions they can afford, with the help of their therapists-- and I know your part-time Urban Outfitters pay can't be covering that. The style of proving one's awareness and empathy might have changed but the philosophy behind it hasn't. Nowadays, you might be living IN the slums rather than driving by them, but you're still doing it to prove that you got the "soul" that you presume these slums to have, and that they have it by virtue of deprivation. What's most reprehensible is that they are leeching off others' misfortune and it is in their interest that neighborhoods remain dangerous rather than thriving. Plus their very presence (and its purchasing power) is one of improvement through gentrification rather than community building from within.

But on the other hand, whatever. I like the song. Let's go.

5 Most Disappointing Music Videos of 2010

2010's Five Most Disappointing Videos, most of them sadly paired with really good songs.

Teenage Anarchist - Against Me! - This vid is just as bland as their sound is threatening to become. Don't get me wrong-- I like some catchy pop punk any day of the week, but I kind of want a fun video to go with it-- I need the whole package. Not the video of how the wrong stripper showed up to the lead singer's bachelor party. (Though could an argument be that this simplified view of us versus them meshes with his "teenage anarchist" ideals?)

3000 Miles Away - Star Fucking Hipsters - Same thing with this vid-- take your martyr complex out on your therapist. Not us. It presents an oversimplified vision not so much of brutality but of incarceration in general. What if the other four were, I don't know, arrested with 20 dead illegal immigrants in the back of their truck. What if they're trying to find the other 30 immigrants in their other truck? And they're orphans? In the truck? GET LENNIE BRISCOE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE GUYS! Anyway, that's not cool. And if Ethan Suplee is in this, does that mean SFH is now part of the Scientology conspiracy web that runs media? I mean, look at the production value on this: it's spiffy! (Ok. Jedi mindtrick moment is funny.)

Infinity Guitars - Sleigh Bells - I am so over anarchy cheerleaders. I didn't like it when Nirvana did it. All that goes through my head is Be Aggressive, which isn't a bad thing I suppose. This video does support my theory that hipsters are the new douchey McJocks of the decade, though.

Born Free - MIA - I remember when I liked MIA? In high school, they were playing Fire Fire on the radio and I was digging it like one of those Egyptian guys in Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Right? They excavate the Well of Souls in like, 4 hours.) Then it kind of got annoying-- then she kind of got annoying. And now this sensationalist drivel to match her revolutionary chic, something she's not even revolutionizing herself; it's always been about the flash and bang and tanks painted pink, and not about answering questions and providing information and awareness. This video takes that to the NINE MINUTE max and instead of defying expectations only has one thing to say-- MIA has nothing to say.

Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over 2010 Version - I'm all over the place with Florence & the Machine, and this is on here more on principle-- I can take or leave the video, which is a little bit of awkward America's Next Top Model photoshoot put in the easy-to-digest-avant-garde blender. But I think it's 100% nonsense that they've released another video when they had a perfectly decent one out their already. I couldn't tell you what the old vid looked like but this new move is a total George Lucas, this time with some backup dancers rejected from a Cramps video.

Bonus: I saw this on TV & it makes me uncomfortable.

did you know AFI is still around?!

What are they up to, you ask? Dressing up like Maroon 5 at a New Jersey after prom party & making unremarkable singles. Maaan, they were so hot in high school.

New Patrick Wolf track - hooray!

odds n ends

this is a print that you can purchase on Etsy from letterhappy.

Just some stuff--

1. Why is the notorious Michiko Kakutani writing Family Guy fanfic? I didn't get a goddamn thing out of this review (check out this one instead) except that it's narrated by a dog. Plus, I don't even like Family Guy. (Is this controversial?: I think American Dad is a lot better.)

2. Vulture has 7 steps on how to on hate the Beatles, who are now available on iTunes. I don't quite get the point but it is kinda amusing in that you could apply it to not liking anything that is generally popular.

5. Don’t have some big overarching narrative about baby boomers or technology or anything. The point here is that you’re amazing people by not enjoying the Beatles’ music, not Western history. Don’t start trotting out complex arguments about the cultural influence of baby boomers or the role of legendary bands in a “narrowcast” culture — you’re disliking a band, not writing a trend article for Wired [. . .]

7. Remain calm and amused. Hey, you just happen to not enjoy the Beatles — it’s everyone else who’s getting weirdly worked up about that. Maintain a sense of bafflement, as if you’ve been immersed in a glorious world of music way better than the Beatles, and are slightly confused that all this is happening[. . .]

We’d be remiss not to note, though, that any environment in which these tricks really work is probably not a fun one for you to be around in the first place.

Anyway, I have a one-point rebuttal on why you should love the Beatles: this. Oh yeah.

GAP owns Christmas

Shame on me for this in light of the rampant commercialization of Christmas. Or look at it this way: money funds the arts? I dunno. Anyway, I vaguely remember these ads on TV, but only just ran across them on Youtube. Obviously I dig the Janelle Monae cos it's Janelle Monae. I also dig "Baby It's Cold Outside" because of Selma Blair, who I'm all about simply because she's in Hellboy. I'm that easy.