The Clash - Sandinista!
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Free Music Notes for Sandinista!
Free Music Review: Still Subversive, Topical, Brilliant
Hit: 4 Stars
"Sandinista!" is undoubtedly the Clash's most underappreciated and misunderstood album. Issued as their fourth LP in the US, the disk was panned by many critics as undisciplined and unfocused, with many of the 36 tracks unpolished and a handful downright incoherent. Guilty as charged, at least partially. "Sandinista!" is still a brilliant album, with most of the excesses attributable to an explosion of creativity seldom seen.
Coming off the "London Calling" double album, the Clash work most favorably recalled today, Mick Jones, Joe Strummer, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon tumbled headlong into a variety of musical styles and tastes. Straight-ahead rock is leavened with ska, reggae and dub, Trinidadian steel drums, calypso, dance pop and nascent rap, `60s girl group vocals, old time Negro spiritual, soul and funk and whatever else caught their fancy. The group worked long hours in the studio, rehearsing, noodling, brain-storming - and recording - just about everything. Ultimately they ended up with more than enough material for two sides of a vinyl LP. Determined to give the fans "value for money" and in fact engaged in a wasteful battle of wills with CBS/Epic over what the Clash perceived as loathsome promotion efforts, the boys insisted on releasing a 3-disk record featuring everything-but-the-kitchen-sink.
The result is a "Sandinista!" that fans and critics initially (and understandably) found hard to digest, let alone embrace. Twenty-some years later, however, the album remains as subversive and topical and rewarding as any ever made. It is at once entertaining and thought provoking, disturbing and soothing, good natured and dour, confounding and brilliant.
In opening number The Magnificent Seven, Joe Strummer raps to a bass-and-drums dance beat, spitting out such classic lines as, "What do we have for entertainment? Cops kickin' gypsies on the pavement!" and "Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss. It's our profit, it's his loss." As the rhythm section propels the tune, an irresistible call and response chorus goes, "You lot! What? Don't stop, give it all you got." Hitsville UK prefigures Bananarama, featuring Mick Jones' girlfriend at the time, Ellen Foley. An old street bum serves as the device to poignantly lament post-war England, the class system, and other social ills. Somebody Got Murdered is a straight-ahead rocker. As reported by Marcus Gray in his superb Clash biography "The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town", it was `commissioned' by the director of the Al Pacino movie "Cruising" - who never returned to claim his song! It is immediately followed by One More Time, a reggae lament influenced by Jamaican DJ-songwriter-producer Mikey Dread, the lyrics a sharp depiction of ghetto poverty and violence. (Mikey Dread would in fact heavily influence the album overall.) An up-tempo romp, Lightning Strikes (Not Once but Twice) lightens the mood with some dance-funk fun.
Mick Jones' joyful, rocking melody on Up in Heaven (Not Only Here) masks lyrics portraying the soul-crushing `towers of London', dreadfully bleak concrete high-rises thrown up by unimaginative city planners to house the post-war poor. Later, Jones' earnest vocals on a cover of the Equals' Police on My Back (written by Eddy Grant) propel the desperate protagonist against a wall of siren-wailing guitars. Effectively following on, the bounce ditty Midnight Log warns the listener, "Working for the devil, you'll have to pay his tax. That means going to see him down among the racks..." Later, on Kingston Advice a vocal chorus echoes a working class theme first established in The Magnificent Seven, the struggle for dignity and redemption amidst oppression, corporate and otherwise: "In these days nations are militant. We have slavery under government. In these days in the firmament, I look for signs that are permanent."
In the universal anti-war brood The Call Up, Joe pleads with his youthful listeners, "It's up to you not to heed the call up. I don't wanna die! It's up to you not to hear the call up. I don't wanna kill!" To Washington Bullets' steel drums and sunny island melody Joe laments America's (and England and Russia's) historic `interference' around the world. Charlie Don't Surf pushes the point further, with a decidedly "Apocalypse Now" anti-Vietnam backdrop. It is Strummer's closing shout of "Sandinista!" that produced the album's title and longest lasting cultural imprint.
Another collaboration stands out: Lyrics penned and sung by Joe's eccentric folk singing pal Tymon Dogg, to a fiddling reel arranged by Mick, Lose This Skin is uplifting, chilling, beautiful, an altogether exhilarating song.
Perhaps the best way to listen to this album is to edit it yourself, i.e. boil it down to a single coherent, more focused, digestible, and clearly themed album. For example, I would open with Magnificent Seven, followed by Hitsville UK, Something About England, Rebel Waltz, Somebody Got Murdered, One More Time, Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice), Up in Heaven (Not Only Here), Police on My Back, Midnight Log, The Call Up, Washington Bullets, Lose This Skin, Charlie Don't Surf, and Kingston Advice. I'd close with the rousing The Sound of the Sinners, in which Joe Strummer sings, "After all this time to believe in Jesus. After all those drugs I thought I was him. After all my lying and a-crying and my suffering, I ain't good enough, I ain't clean enough to be him." Powerful stuff and another good example why this is a great album.
Once digested, go back and listen to the rest of the stuff. But yes, Clash fans, I initially would skip Junco Partner, Joe's tongue in cheek anti-drug rap; Ivan Meets GI Joe, an effects laden disco ball groove; The Crooked Beat, Paul's follow-up to Guns of Brixton, which the others inexplicably turned into a reggae song - not at all what Paul intended; the Equaliser, a song type of which Joe did better many times over; the piano driven "Version City", and a half dozen others of lesser merit.
A masterpiece? No. Is this the Clash's "White Album" or "Exile on Main Street"? No. It IS too long, too undisciplined and too unfocused to be called that. If anything, "London Calling" may fit such a characterization. But "Sandinista!" is still a great album nonetheless, capable of stunning the listener with its creative highs. Soak it in and appreciate. You'll listen to "Sandinista!" long after you've mined everything from other albums, Beatles to the Clash.
Free Music Review: Cool Confusion...?!
Hit: 4 Stars
More than anything else, "Sandinista!" is the album that sets the Clash apart from the rest of punk, and probably also the rest of rock. There are a couple of clunkers, sure... I don't exactly think that listening to Mr. Gallagher's kid warbling through "The Guns Of Brixton" is exactly essential listening, for instance.
But.
The stuff that's good is among the best that the Clash, or anyone else, ever recorded. And I think that if you're going to attempt something this ambitious, you're going to fall short from time to time. When it works, and when the band--augmented by a few of the Blockheads, a future Mescalero, and a handful of other friends--is firing on all cylanders, it's nothing short of magic.
For every hit, like the irrepresably funky "Magnificent Seven" or "Somebody Got Murdered," there're two that should have been. "Lightning Strikes," "Broadway," "Charlie Don't Surf," and "The Call-Up" (among others) are worthy additions to the Clash canon, while some of the tracks also point the way to Joe Strummer's future work with Latino Rockabilly War and the Mescaleros (and some of the other songs serve as blueprints for other artists' sounds; if Brian Setzer never covered "Look Here," he should, already).
There's something else to the Clash that you didn't get from a lot of the rest of punk, that started to show itself on "London Calling" and is even more pronounced here: there's a warmth and compassion, especially to Strummer's material, that you wouldn't get from, say, the Pistols, the Buzzcocks, or the Ramones.
David Byrne remarked once that when you walk down the streets of most cities, you're assaulted by every kind of music imaginable; he complained that you hardly ever hear that in music. This is the exception to the rule; it sounds like someone took a walk down a thriving main street with their ears open, decided they loved every last bit of what they heard, and wanted to see what it'd sound like all stuck in the blender. So is it uneven? Sure. But if whether or not you're a Clash fan, you owe it to yourself to hear a great band push the envelope. It's a wonderful mess, and a good reminder of all that's possible in music.
Free Music Review: A very talented band that maybe got a bit carried away
Hit: 5 Stars
OK, I can relate with people that say the Clash included a lot of filler in this album. Yes, there are some songs that are, well, they aren't even Clash songs. I mean, you got kids singing, you got Jamaicans singing, women singing, etc. And if you get caught up in some of these "different" songs, you start to take a negative view of the album. HOWEVER, let's keep something in mind. When this album was released, it was on three albums. However, it was priced the same as your typical double album. So in effect, you were getting triple the music for not much more. So, when you keep that in mind, you se that you are not being ripped off at all. You are just experiencing an extremely talented band having fun. They play rap, reggae, punk, ska, funk, etc. And if you don't like a song, just forward it, there are plenty to choose from. There are plenty of Clash staples here, like "Something About England," "Somebody Got Murdered," "Lets Go Crazy," "Police on My Back," "Charlie Don't Surf," etc.. Yeah, "Lose this Skin" is a stretch, among others, but like I said, if you don't like it, forward it and keep in mind, for the price, you got a pretty nice deal just the same.Free Music Review: even though it's popular, it's still underrated
Hit: 5 Stars
I admit, this album took me a little getting used to, probably due to its versitality, but OH my GOD, this has got to be one of the most underrated albums (and bands) of all time. I know the majority of critics will disagree, but this is the Clash's best album, and one of the best albums ever recorded. It is so FUN and exciting and purely incredible. London Calling is right up there with it, but something about Sandinista! really gets me. Every song is so completely different and versatile. And I think the Clash pulled off the reggae tracks flawlessly--#3 on both the first and second discs are two of my all time favorite songs. Along with basically every other track on the album too. I have actually thought about buying this album to send out to random addresses. I love it so @#^%@$% much. I could go on and on, but you probably get the point. AMAZing album, and AMAAAAZING band.Free Music Review: Some very good music - could have used some editing
Hit: 3 Stars
I bought this album based on George Starostin's recommendation - he holds this up as the Clash's best album (and I respect his opinion greatly). Can't really agree, though, and I don't think many people do. There is definitely a lot of high quality work here, but for me it is a bit of a disappointment after London Calling. Probably a third of these songs are darn good. I wouldn't say anything on here has a wow factor, though. After a few listens, I'm not excited to share any of the highlights with my friends or family. It's worth buying, though, if you liked London Calling and if the price is right. I just wish someone with discerning tastes would have whittled this down to about half the length. No way I could ever make it through either CD without skipping a couple of songs. I understand (per George) the Clash rejected the royalties from this album in order to keep the price down. My take on this is they must have felt guilty for all the filler. Another thing to note: it's evident listening to this how much disco/dance music had permeated society by this time. Disco was definitely fading by now, but Michael Jackson, Sister Sledge and Kool and the Gang were big enough that you could hardly avoid having that type of music as part of the soundtrack for your life. The Clash couldn't help but be influenced and it shows on several tracks which have a slick dance rhythm. You won't find the variety of genres here as you did on Londong Calling. You have some reggae and some proto-new wave dance fusion with a punk singing style. All in all, it's a very good (not great) CD's worth of material on a two CD set.