The Clash - London Calling: So, the album started with “London Calling”, which...is easily one of my favourite songs by The Clash already and when I heard it. That song alone gave me pretty high expectations, the way it sounds like a dirge foretelling the inevitable fall of London. It's absolutely fantastic. From that to “Brand New Cadillac”...I dunno. The song's not bad, but not anything real special. From there it kinda goes downhill...good on them for experimenting, and I'm not gonna bash them for doing so as I actively promote experimenting from artists, but I don't particularly like it here. Things look up a bit once “Lost in the Supermarket” comes around, which is a wonderfully sad, lonely song, and “Clampdown” is nice for the lack of a chorus and being a bit better. I will say, the album peaks again for a little while, “The Guns of Brixton” comes around and feels a whole lot more punk in attitude despite being so reggae, “Wrong 'Em Boyo” follows and is surprisingly fun, different and jazzy, “Death or Glory” is wonderful in spite of its clear dadrockness and then “Koka Kola” becomes one of my favourites for the oddness of hearing cocaine advertised with soft drink slogans. “The Card Cheat” is cheesy but good, and then the album takes a huge dip after that with the weird, awkwardly sexual love song that is “Lover's Rock”. From there it never really picks up and ends with the dadrockiest song I've heard from them, “Train in Vain”, which—to be fair—is pretty good.
So, all-in-all, I didn't enjoy this album as much as their first. It was good, not terrible, and had some of their better songs, but as a whole it just was more of a drag to sit through. The biggest culprit was how padded their songs became, with so much repetition of the chorus, punctuating verses with it and then often having it repeat multiple times near the end. Basically, this album was much more dadrock and kind of cliché and typical. Again, that's not to say it's bad, just kinda disappointing.