Scan barcode
A review by margaret45678
Route 19 Revisited: The Clash and London Calling by Marcus Gray
informative
3.5
I read this book quite a while ago and my memory might not be totally accurate but I remember finding it pretty tedious at the time. Some of the information is totally irrelevant (do we really need a history of the skull and crossbones to understand 'Death or Glory'?).
That being said, there's a lot of good stuff in there, too; besides all the Clash minutiae, there's a lot of info on social history, films, other bands and even literature (well, Federico Garcia Lorca and Brighton Rock at least) which I really appreciated. The recording and production of 'London Calling' is genuinely really interesting and the songs are so full of (often rather obscure) references to things, reading this book did help me appreciate and understand the record better.
I almost want to say it would have worked better as a 33 1/3 book that focused more on the album itself, but I have to admit that this book introduced me to a lot of other stuff I wouldn't have otherwise known about, and that kind of makes up for the boring bits.
That being said, there's a lot of good stuff in there, too; besides all the Clash minutiae, there's a lot of info on social history, films, other bands and even literature (well, Federico Garcia Lorca and Brighton Rock at least) which I really appreciated. The recording and production of 'London Calling' is genuinely really interesting and the songs are so full of (often rather obscure) references to things, reading this book did help me appreciate and understand the record better.
I almost want to say it would have worked better as a 33 1/3 book that focused more on the album itself, but I have to admit that this book introduced me to a lot of other stuff I wouldn't have otherwise known about, and that kind of makes up for the boring bits.