An album so monumental Rolling Stone named it their best of the 1980s, even though it was released in ’79, London Calling's breathtaking spread of styles functioned not only as punk’s riposte to Exile On Main Street and The White Album, but an index of classic Americana as seen from a grim and beleagured Blighty.
Over 18 tunes, The Clash reversed their ‘I’m So Bored With The USA’ diktat and mined American history, myth and pop art, invoking Elvis, Montgomery Clift and the badman gangsta archetype Stagger Lee. At this point, the four piece were brimming with so much confidence there didn’t seem to be anything they couldn’t play, be it bluebeat (‘Wrong ‘Em Boyo’), raffish rockabilly (‘Brand New Cadillac’), Spector-esque walls of sound (‘The Card Cheat’), white soul (‘Train In Vain’), agit-prop (‘Working For The Clampdown’), doomy urban dub (‘Guns Of Brixton’) and knockabout poolroom rock (‘Jimmy Jazz’).
In anybody’s book, this double set was an embarassment of riches. The band were on the kind of roll comparable to Dylan’s mid-60s triptych and the Stones’ golden age (’68-’72). It didn’t hurt that Strummer, Simenon and Jones looked like matinee idols, establishing an iconographic gang chic used as a template by rock ‘n’ roll romantics for the next 25 years.