Burning London

This tribute album has a variety of artists including No Doubt, Ice Cube, Third Eye Blind and Moby. They cover classic Clash songs, like “London’s Burning” and “White Man in Hammersmith Palais” in a variety of styles.

Some of these covers work pretty well. I liked Ice Cube and Mack 10’s rendition of “Should I Stay or Should I go” and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones do a good job of “Rudie can’t fail”. But others I had to ship through. I couldn’t listen to No Doubt’s “Hateful”, or Cracker’s “White Riot” with a country twang. On one hand it is interesting to listen to tribute albums to see how new artists work with this classic material, but on the other hand I often just wanted to hear the original. I would recommend that libraries should just add the original albums or a “best of” rather than a tribute album. The tributes date much more quickly as the “hot bands” selected fade out of popularity.

Age Range: 13+
Ranking: Quality – 3/5 Popularity – 2/5