It's Been 30 Years Since The Release Of The Only Album That Matters

The Clash’s London Calling came out thirty years ago today. It still stands as punk rock’s crowning achievement. In fact, it’s probably as responsible as any other work for the fact that the term “punk rock” seems kind of silly now. The Clash were a punk band, coming out of England with the Sex Pistols in the late ’70s. But the music on London Calling ranges from reggae to rockabilly to snazzy pop tunes. It’s thoughtful and refined, even gentle at times, and delivered with as much subtlety as spit. It rages and sneers, too, to be sure, but even in that, it proves the futility of thin definition and sub-categorization. It’s all just rock n’ roll, really, right? London Calling is just some of the very best of the stuff ever recorded. (Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do a tango about the use of flying buttresses in gothic cathedrals.) Oh, and for perspective, 30 years before London Calling’s release, it was December 14th, 1949, Elvis Presley hadn’t recorded any songs and no one knew what “rock n’ roll” was. So now rock has been dead and reborn for longer than it was alive in the first place. Or something.