Customer Reviews

London Calling - The Legacy Edition (Bonus CD)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Disc One: The Original LP

Hands down, The Clash's "London Calling" is one of the strongest albums in rock history. Despite being a punk rock group, The Clash explored reggae, ska, jazz, pop with strong melodies with equally as strong lyrics. Throughout the album's 19 tracks, it is never boring and is essential in anyone's record collection.

Disc Two: The Vanilla Tapes

The demos from the "London Calling" sessions are very interesting but it is by no means something one just sits back and listens to. The sound quality is poor, and the songs are not quite in the form that they would take on later. The most intresting is the cover of Bob Dylan's "The Man in Me". It would have been interesting to hear a better cut of that song. Interesting listening for fans but newcomers might not welcome it as much.

DVD: The Last Testament

There is some cool videos on the DVD of "Train in Vain", "London Calling" and "Clampdown" but the documentary itself really kind of drags. Listening to the album take form on disc 2 is interesting but nothing is really learned in the documentary. Plays a lot like a "Behind the Music" episode but not nearly as in depth. Pretty much just an added bonus.

FINAL REVIEW:

As I mentioned, "London Calling" is a must have. A Five Star classic that ranks among the greatest albums of all time. Not having this is like not having "Sgt. Pepper" or "Kind of Blue". The album in its new extended package is excessive and for die hard fans. The demos are interesting but nothing to listen to repeatedly and the DVD is a throw away. Not a waste of money but if you own the original remastered CD, that should suffice.

This isn't a review of the Clash's "London Calling" album, which for all purposes is one of, if not the, greatest albums of all tie. This is a critique of this package of the album.
The record itself is amazong, though it is the exact the same as the record that has been out on C.D. for the past five years.
But the extras are a bit of a sham. The widely bootlegged "Vanilla Tapes" were actually better in their bootleg quality. Here the sound is muddled, which wouldn't be a bad thing if you could actually hear it all, but since there has been absolutley no effort made to fix the sound, it just reeks of laziness, like someone at Epic Records decided to drain more cash from Clash fans since the only surefire way to sell records anymore is re-releasing classic albums to people who all ready own them.
The DVD is made up of things that are all ready availble on the far superior "Westway to the World", except this time again it feels like a patchwork. The editing is choppy, and it looks, feels, and probably is just a way to jack the price up another five to ten bucks.
The reason for the re-releasing, and most of this type of stuff(you hear me Weezer) is to make money. There is something wrong about this that I can't even explain it in words. This package feels like something Joe Strummer would have been against.
If you are a Clash fan then you no doubt disagree with me, and that's cool. All of this is subjective. And if you don't own "London Calling", then by all means get it as quickly as you can. But not this version. Get the single C.D. version.

You'd have to have a hard heart to deny Joe's ex and Mick and Paul one last payday. I remember buying this record in September of 1980; two records for a list price of $7.98, a year later they'd release Sandinista (three LPs!) and list it at $9.98. This at the same time that Columbia was asking $11.98 for Bruce Springsteen's two-LP The River and $14.98 for The Wall. Joe always had a keen sense of the thin wallets in the pockets of his fan base.

I remember bringing this record back to my dorm (fall of my freshman year) and dropping the needle on Side 1. It didn't matter who you played it for -- skinny-tie new wavers, heavy metal freaks (this was the year of AC/DC), Jefferson Starship fans, CSN fans -- no one could deny the genius of it. I wore out all four sides in this order -- Side 1, Side 3 (Elevator! Goin up!), Side 4, Side 2. These days you can have all 4 sides (no flipping, no wear!) for $10.98. It's still the best bargain in rock history.

Or you can have this thing for $26.98 (hey! down to $24.98!). There's nothing essential on the Vanilla Tapes, though I'm still glad to own it. The DVD, like all such "making-of" endeavors, is best avoided. The full-size fold-out lyric sheet is welcome. Whoever decided to illustrate the broadside interior and several pages of the booklet with generic 50s "sock-hop" clip-art should meet the same fate as the Card Cheat. But all in all, it's a generous tribute to a band that was once "the only band that matters."

London Calling is the greatest rock and roll album ever, bar none. The Clash hit their stride with this record, incorporating their myriad influences into something far greater than the sum of the parts. This was the high point of their career.

As for the Vanilla Tapes: they are a fascinating document of a great band ( might they have truly been the only band that mattered?) pulling together their influences to forge something new. Despite what another reviewer wrote, these tracks have never been bootlegged, so we are all hearing them for the first time.

The booklet is great. It is not slapped together but provides interesting historical documents, such as the Armigideon Times, along with new essays setting forth the background, recording and impact of the album.

The DVD could have used fresh interviews with Mick, Paul and Topper, but even lacking those, it is still interesting and the studio footage is great. I always thought the stories about Guy Stevens' nuttiness in the studio was hyperbole, but if anything, he was crazier than the stories made him out to be.

This is a great re-release of the greatest album ever. Buy it without fear.

This was worth the wait. From the copy of the original lp's lyric sheet to the Vanilla tapes to the making of docs, this package has it all. Disc 1 holds the original album---It's great. What else to say? Disc 2 holds the Vanilla tapes. Early demos of songs from London Calling and songs that did not make the cut. The versions here of I'm Not Down, Guns of Brixton and Death or Glory along with Dylan's Man in Me make this set a must have. The dvd included has a geat short about the making of London Calling along with videos and some studio glimpses.

BUY THIS!

When my neighbor came back from a London Christmas vacation in December of '79, I eagerly anticipated a box full of the latest punk rawk from the scene. I was presented with just London Calling. "The rest is dead bones rattling in a coffin. THIS album is the one that will never be forgotten."

My neighbor was right.

The rerelease is worthy of investment, not just for the interesting DVD that comes along with it (Westway to the World is the essential movie on the Clash), nor for the marginally interesting "vanilla tapes" cd (very low-fi rehearsals for many of the songs that would become LC). The rerelease of London Calling is worthy of the investment because of the remastering. The full range of instruments used comes out of the background and take their proper place in the mix.

If you were into punk back in the day, you'll remember what this album meant to us. If you haven't listened to it in a while, get this and be amazed at what we missed on vinyl back then. If you've never heard the Clash, this is THE place to start. Not a bad song on the bugger.

After reading a few of the reviews here I must point out that what you are in essence buying is the Vanilla tapes. To any die hard Clash fan these are the lost demo tapes of London Calling and have taken on mythic proportions over the years.
If you are a casual fan and already have London Calling,perhaps you should leave alone. From my perspective, a new copy of the original album,a DVD and a copy of the Vanilla tapes represent huge VFM. Having said that someone listening to a bunch of demo songs could well be dissapointed, but they are what they are, demo's.
The interesting thing for me is that they show how the songs evolved into the album versions.

Like I said probably for serious Clash fans and not Joe Public

The Clash were perhaps the very embodiment of true punk, with a far higher level of musical versatility than may have been evident to the casual observer at the time. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones made a formidable songwriting partnership, with both immediacy and depth, and assimilated a huge range of musical influences. They were one of the few collection of musicians without Jamaican origins who could successfully play reggae, or their own punkish re-modelling of reggae, without sounding like an insipid imitation. As well as their own reggae or rasta-inspired Rudie Can't Fail and Jimmy Jazz, its influence is throughout and there are two reggae tunes, Danny Ray's Get Up (as Revolution Rock) and the Rulers' Wrong 'Em Boyo, which begins with a snatch of Johnny Otis' Staggerlee And Billy, just as the Rulers version did.
They also cover Vince Taylor's rockabilly classic Brand New Cadillac. When Joe Strummer later sang with the Pogues in place of the ailing Shane MacGowan, it made perfect sense because of the impassioned folk-a-billy sensibilities also inherent in the Clash's music.
The name London Calling comes from the call sign of the BBC's 2LO radio news bulletin, dating from 1922, and is apposite as the band send their own front-line bulletins around the globe half-a-century later. The call sign was retained by the World Service, for whom Joe Strummer was later to present record programmes right up to his untimely death.
The title song was a single in the UK, though in the USA it became the flip of Train In Vain (Stand By Me). Astonishingly, the dazzling Train In Vain was originally written and recorded to be a free cover-mounted single for the New Musical Express, and appeared on the album as a last-minute undocumented extra track when that didn't happen.
The double-album London Calling is an enduring masterpiece, though some of its sonic subtleties were lost in the original vinyl mastering, and far from being locked in a seventies time warp, the record sounds valid and meaningful today.
The original re-mastered CD rectified many of the vinyl shortcomings, bringing out parts of the musical palette that had previously sounded dull, and this new re-master is at least its equal, and often superior. It also sounds leaner, as the 3-second pauses between the tracks have been excised, hence the abbreviated running time.
The Vanilla tapes are demos recorded at a rehearsal studio in Pimlico, made in the final month before album recording proper got underway at Wessex in July 1979. Believed lost for many years they acquired legendary status, partly because Joe Strummer had at one time intimated that the demos might actually become the album, though this was mostly gamesmanship with the record label, as the sound quality is not of a releasable quality for that purpose. It is are a fascinating document of a series of songs in development, though; valuable to those with a serious interest in the band. I imagine it is disc one that will find its way back to my CD tray most frequently, but it is of course nice to have, along with the booklet, a facsimile of the original album insert and a bonus DVD, in a well presented package

This is a great package with the original album, an extended booklet with essays and photos, a single disc of demos, and a DVD.

Twenty-five years after its release, the album itself is no mystery. London Calling is a timeless classic. Even today, it stills sounds fresh, lively, and relevant. Not many other records from the late 70's and 1980's can make this claim. The band pushes way beyond its punk roots, yet still keeps a sharp political edge to the lyrics.

The demos disc is an interesting document of early versions of the songs and a powerful way to hear the influence of Guy Stevens on the final product. Casual fans or shallow listeners probably won't see the value of the demos, but anybody with a passion for the creative process will find a lot of cool moments on the second disc. Collectors and big fans will also enjoy a batch of unreleased songs, including a Dylan cover and a run-through of Remote Control.

The other stuff in the package is good but not great. The booklet feels like it was a bit of an afterthought. A reprint of the original album sleeves, with lyrics and photos, is nice to have. The DVD is mostly interesting for including footage of the band in the studio--you can see for yourself how crazy Guy Stevens was--and videos for London Calling, Train in Vain, and Clampdown.

So, 4 stars. A better booklet and more live footage on the DVD would make it 5 stars.

The world has spun a few times since "London Calling" was released back in very late 1979 (on vinyl, natch!), but the love fest that has sprung up in its wake continues to gather steam. For my money, it's always been a great (if somewhat slightly overrated) album, as well as the album on which The Clash began to squander their greatness. From here, it would be a long, sad downward spiral through "Sandanista" and into the abyss with "Combat Rock." As someone who prefers the friendly and comfortable confines of a rut, I'd have been perfectly happy if the band had continued on in the same vein of out-and-out brilliance demonstrated on "The Clash" (both UK and US versions), the vastly underrated "Give `Em Enough Rope," and non-LP singles and B-sides of that era like "Capital Radio," "Pressure Drop," and "1977." On the other hand, by my count, this is the fourth time I've bought "London Calling" and as far as re-issues go, they remain the only band I would cross the road for.

It would be pointless, repetitive, and tiresome to go into too much depth recounting the original album's highs and lows - chances are if you're reading this, all 19 tracks are probably burned onto your frontal lobe. Topper Headon's performance behind the drum kit is worth the price of admission alone, tight, compact, and propulsive. The title track (as someone who abhors the Beatles, I love to rub the phrase "Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust" in the faces of friends who think the Fab 4 hung the moon), "Brand New Cadillac," "Clampdown," "The Guns of Brixton," and "Death or Glory" all bristle with old-style Clash aggression, anger and energy, while "Spanish Bombs," "Lost In The Supermarket," "Lover's Rock," "4 Horsemen," "I'm Not Down," and (whew!) "Revolution Rock" may leave you scratching your head and wondering just what it was about this band that made you think they could change the world.

So let's cut to the chase - the Vanilla tapes, 21 tracks recorded at the titular studio in Pimlico which eavesdrops on The Clash working the kinks out of most of the songs which made the final "London Calling" cut. As someone who never loses sight of the fact that most, if not all, major label album releases are cloaked in a thick smokescreen of studio wizardry, bells, and whistles, I found most (hell, all!) of the Vanilla tapes' charm to be in their unsanded veneer and by-design demo quality. Of course, I'd rather pay money to watch a rough-and-ragged rehearsal or sound check by my favorite bands than a slick, professional performance. I'm funny like that, so proceed with caution. Uncovered in an old cardboard box by Mick Jones when he was preparing to move, these songs were never intended as some kind of audiophile experience. Complaints lodged in this forum about their lack of high fidelity are puzzling and, quite frankly, completely devoid of anything resembling a clue.

As for the DVD, if you already own "Westway To The World," most of it will look familiar, but how can you go wrong with all of the crystal clear live footage, interviews with band members (the late Joe Strummer's segments are especially poignant) and their associates, and a peek into the studio at nutjob producer Guy Stevens' shenanigans during the recording of this album?

"London Calling" was the last stand of four guys for whom the term "electrifying" was woefully inadequate. On any given night, The Clash were capable of blasting you outside of yourself, making you feel super-alive, and able to pretend that night was the rest of your life. What else in the realm of the living or dead really matters?