Profligate Vinyl: London Calling

Welcome to the second edition of Profligate Vinyl; you can find the first one here.

In the last post, we went deep on the White Album, partly because it existed as a vast fog in my head, and I really had to go track by track to get a handle on it. In the end, we addressed (but did not answer) a few questions: was the White Album self-indulgent? Clearly yes; it perhaps stands as the monument to pop music indulgence. Would it have been better as a single album? Well, yes and no: a 45 minute edit of the album is definitely tighter, and (to my mind at least) an absolutely superb album. BUT: there is a certain charm to the loose indulgence of the whole thing, and while a single album would be better in most respects, the shaggy dog double has a flair that goes beyond the hits.

So, I suppose you could say that is was a split decision on the White Album. Today, we will have no such split decision: London Calling is tight as a drum to the very end, and any cut will be to meat, not fat. Unlike the White Album, I can sing (sort of?) London Calling in order from the beginning to the end. Part of that is due to the fact that I have listened to it so often, but beyond that, the whole album rolls with a certain tension and inexorable logic all the way through. It is The Clash at the height of their powers.

London Calling is a legendary record, certainly in the class of the White Album. It is a major transformation for The Clash, who move from being a straight up punk band to being a pretty versatile rock band, from being a sloppier left-wing version of the Buzzcocks to being a younger, more politically astute version of the Rolling Stones (but with decent lyrics, which the Stones only sporadically indulged). Like any career transformation, London Calling left some of The Clash's older, more purist punk fans behind; but the record is probably more remarkable for how many punks actually followed them through the transition. Those who wanted their punk rage more left-wing, noisy, and pure moved on to bands like Crass and The Ex, but even those who followed a less commercial route often still had a soft spot for The Clash.

Without further ado, here's the 45 minute edit:

Let's start of with a list of the songs left off of the edit:

• Brand New Cadillac
• Jimmy Jazz
• The Right Profile
• Lost in the Supermarket
• Wrong 'Em Boyo
• Train in Vain

Can you quibble with this list? HELL YES you can, and I almost want to reconsider it myself, except that I know it would be an endless process. "Train in Vain" was the only easy decision, and it is a fine song, but a bit of a throwaway, which gets it cut. Other than that, we loose two of the three covers (including a blistering version of "Brand New Cadillac"), "Lost in the Supermarket", which is one of the most famous songs on the record, "The Right Profile", which I wanna put back on the list right now! . . . and, well, you get the idea. This is one goddamn lean record as is, and any cuts are to the detriment of the whole.

Verdict: NOT indulgent, EDITS BAD!

Now, Sandinista, on the other hand . . . 

Ranked: Star Trek Engineers

Star Trek's "alien races", like the famous horror monsters of American imagination (Frankenstein, Dracula, the wolfman, zombies, etc.) tend to be ciphers for archetypes . . . specifically in this case, archetypal societies: so you have the Vulcans, the cerebral, enlightened society ruled by intellect; the Klingons, the tragic Shakespearean warrior society; the Ferengi, the embodiment of the most base of bourgeois capitalist instincts*; the Cardassians, who are the military industrial complex raised to ordering principle; the Bajorans, who are essentially space Irish; etc. . . . The exception, of course, are earthling humans themselves, who generally are defined by the arc of the series. So: in the original ST, humans are explorers/adventurers, in TNG they are diplomats. Enterprise, which predates the original in the timeline, splits the difference between explorer and diplomat. DS9 and Voyager are less clear: DS9 more from an intentional ambiguity and complexity built in to the series, Voyager more from lack of vision.

If there is any coherent view of humans seen through the eyes of other alien races, it is probably the recurring theme from DS9 that the Federation produces elite engineers ("I'm willing to bet that you've brought one of those famed Starfleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators" Keevan the Vorta, DS9 episode "Rocks and Shoals"). Humans in Starfleet are not typically marked by intellect, warrior skills, advanced technology, or any extraordinary physical attributes. The one trait that Star Trek writers have consistently allowed Earthlings is a general knack for problem solving, which, on DS9, is explicitly tied to the Starfleet Engineering Corps.

So, without further ado, Star Trek engineers, ranked:

6. Torres (Voyager)
5. Tucker (Enterprise)
4.  Scott (original)
3.  Scott (reboot)
2.  O'Brien (DS9 & TNG)
1.  La Forge (TNG)

A few notes:

• Scotty obviously set the tone for Star Trek engineers right from the jump as a cracker jack applied scientist who could do anything. He didn't really dabble in theory, but he knew all the theory he needed to get done what needed to be done. Scotty in the reboot gets the slightest of nods because there is the intimation that he did dabble in theory, as evidenced by the equation that the elder Spock showed him that he would write in the future to enable beaming between ships at warp speed. I think you would have a legit argument for either Scott, O'Brien, or La Forge as the top engineer.
• O'Brien also seems more versed in abstract theory than other Star Trek engineers, as evidenced by the fact that he and Jadzia Dax were able to move Deep Space 9 out of Bajor's orbit and closer to the wormhole.
• Of all the engineers, it is perhaps Geordi La Forge who demonstrates the widest grasp of theory. That spells badass in my book.
• While Voyager got around to getting a female engineer, B'Elanna Torres wasn't often important to the story as an engineer. It is unfortunate that the only female engineer is almost incidentally an engineer.
• Colm Meany is a really good actor.

That's it for this one!

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*  Has anybody ever mentioned how casually anti-capitalist Star Trek can be? Beyond the Ferengi, who never appear without being stooges (at least on some level), there is common reference to the humans of Star Trek living in a post-capitalist culture, with the implicit claim that moving beyond capitalism was an evolutionary step. It seems to me that this vision of a society evolved beyond capitalism is a foundational subtext of virtually the entire franchise.

No Parade - Minutemen (1981)