'London Calling'

My first exposure to The Clash and 1980s punk and ska came in or around 1997. I was 15 and my parents were divorced. At the time, my sister was getting a divorce and living with my mother for a brief time.

She had the soundtrack to the John Cusack film, Grosse Pointe Blank. I tried several years later to watch the film, but I fell asleep.

Anyway, the soundtrack was composed by Joe Strummer, the ultra-cool lead singer of The Clash and featured two Clash songs and a bunch of cool 1980s music.

One of the songs included "Rudy Can't Fail," from The Clash's best album, London Calling.

What makes it the best Clash album is that it encapsulates all of the music that truly inspired the band, including punk, rockabilly, ska, reggae and rock. It's melodic as any Beatles album, yet it's edgy and raging. It matches the cover as well as any album in history.

One of the greatest album covers of all time.