Burning London is a mixed bag of vain covers of old Clash tunes by modern, mostly commercial artists. Some of the covers are awful, some of them not as awful, and some of them sort of good, but nearly all of them forget one thing: The Clash were a punk band. Punk bands write punk songs, and it is ridiculous to pay tribute to one of the three great pioneering punk rock bands, the other two being the Sex Pistols and The Stooges, by doing toned down versions of their songs in other genres of music. It just won't work; it just doesn't work. The performers on Burning London obviously thought they were doing something kooky, experimental and completely worthwhile by updating these rebellious tunes into modern formats, but they end up, for the most part, making complete asses out of themselves.

No Doubt's "Hateful" and Third Eye Blind's "Train In Vain" are jokes, top 40 versions of anti-top 40 classics. The usually brilliant Moby and Heather Nova do a beautiful but ultimately empty and purpose-defeating version of "Straight to Hell," and the Indigo Girls butcher the workman's classic "Clampdown." The biggest embarrassments, however, come from Cracker, who do a country version of "White Riot," and Ice Cube and Mack 10, who perform a rap version of "Should I Stay or Should I Go" which bears almost no resemblance to the original. "Should I stay or should I go/You wanna be a ho?!" Come on, Ice! Where's your fucking sense of decency?

Surprisingly enough, the only two acts that come close to catching the spirit of The Clash are The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, who do a loopy, faithful ska cover of "Rudy Can't Fail," and Silverchair, who perform a surprisingly good cover of "London's Burning." These two bands seem to know what the anarchic spirit of The Clash was all about, and seem to have a desire to celebrate it gleefully. Otherwise, Burning London is a complete waste of time, mostly a collection of mediocre tracks by mediocre artists who don't know the meaning of the words "punk rock."