When the Stones and the Clash Both Saved Rock from Itself: Some Girls vs. London Calling

The easy take is that Some Girls (1978) was the Stones getting punk, and London Calling (1979) was the Clash outgrowing punk. But the real story is that both albums solved the same crisis differently: rock in the late ‘70s was dying of bloated self-importance, and these two records shoved new blood into the corpse by refusing to play by anyone’s rules.

The Stones were the old guard everyone expected to fade. Instead, they stole punk’s speed and disco’s rhythm, cramming it into a cynical, funny, desperate album that proved dinosaurs could still kick.