The Clash - Sandinista!
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Free Music Notes for Sandinista!
Free Music Review: one of a kind
Hit: 5 Stars
I said that London Calling set The Clash apart from all the other punk bands. Well Sandinista! sets The Clash apart from EVERY band. They try absolutely everything. Now with most bands, the "experimental" effort is regarded as the worst, and many Clash fans follow the trend and say that Sandinista! is rubbish. I'm astounded every time I'm told that. Sandinista! is the most beautiful musical creation I've heard, and not only do The Clash try everything, they do it with great enthusiasm and make everything sound great. Well...about everything, by the time you get to L.P. 3, some of it is just too much, but at least they tried. Sometimes to me it seems unnecessary to include the numerous dubs, but they are in fact very enjoyable. Sandinista! is an album that cannot be compared to anything else and an album that must be listened to by everybody. By far The Clash's best effort, no matter how good "White Riot" or "Train in Vain" is.
HIghlights: The Magnificent Seven, Hitsville U.K., Junco Partner, Ivan Meets G.I. Joe, The Leader, Something About England, The Rebel's Waltz, Look Here, Somebody Got Murdered, One More Time, Up In Heaven (Not only Here), Lightning Strikes (Not Once but Twice), Let's Go Crazy, Police On My Back, The Equalizer, The Call Up, Washington Bullets, Charlie Don't Surf, Kingston Advice, The Street Parade, Version City, Career Opportunities, Shepherd's Delight.
About 75% of it
Free Music Review: A jewel
Hit: 5 Stars
This album is a jewel. Few musicians ever have been able to produce an album where all of the tracks are different and easy to the ear. You can listen and listen to the album without getting bored soon. Why? Everyone is different and good.Free Music Review: Clash Around the World
Hit: 5 Stars
Often criticized for being self-indulgent, ill-focused, and overlong, the Clash's "Sandinista!" actually has it all--and in 1980, nobody had all this: funk, reggae, New Orleans jazz scat-singing, gospel, rock, dub, Latin beats plus punk intensity. The Clash were one of the first rock bands to experiment with a new style they discovered on the NYC streets: rap. It's showcased to great effect on the opener, "The Magnificent Seven," about the drudgery and soul-deadening effects of the modern workaday world:
"Ring, ring, seven a.m.
Move yourself to start again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place..."
Throughout the album, the band aligns itself with the world's downtrodden, less fortunate citizens. In the last verse of "Washington Bullets," Joe Strummer goes around the world and finds political oppression and corruption everywhere he goes:
"If you can find an Afghan rebel
that the Moscow bullets missed
Ask him what he thinks of voting Communist
Or ask the Dalai Lama in the hills of Tibet
How many monks did the Chinese get?
In a war-torn swamp ask any mercenary
And check the British bullets in his armory"
The challenges the Clash set up for us were in the way they refused to act in their own best interests; they made you figure out what was going on in the larger world. They looked behind the headlines, the media blitz, the empty pop stars, to find people in all those tragedies. "Somebody Got Murdered" is a perfect slice of life (and death), with Mick Jones' understated whisper so compassionate, vivid, and effective: "Somebody got murdered/Goodbye, for keeps, forever/Somebody's dead forever/His name cannot be found."
You have to let this album insinuate its way into your head and guts over time. The songs will reveal themselves. They attack British provincialism and class "warfare" in the marvelous "Something About England," with Jones the curious youth and Strummer the embittered war veteran. Strummer visits Third World ghettos in "Corner Soul" as well as New York slums in the piano-driven ballad "Broadway." Mick Jones reveals the sad lives in the bleak tower blocks of his homeland in "Up in Heaven," with a marvelous series of images:
"When the wind hits this building
This building it tilts
One day it will surely fall to the ground"
The rocking, invigorating cover of Eddy Grant's "Police on My Back" offers one of the albums most intense highlights; our obsession with apocalypse and celebrity in "Charlie Don't Surf" (yes, the quote from "Apocalypse Now") is set to a beautiful tune; I even love the slow nighttime jam of "If Music Could Talk," with Strummer ad-libbing softly throughout a cool jazzy instrumental: "Buddy Holly sang it for us! What's the drummerman got to say?"
There is so much eclectic music here, full of wit, humor, passion, anger and creativity. I choose to listen to my favorite tracks, and find in them much to still be excited about.
Free Music Review: Will stretch your brain
Hit: 5 Stars
"12 good songs", my ass. This album is great. I love the dub experiments. I love the variety. This is not so much an album for teenagers to bounce around to as it is a celebration of music.
Two of my favorite songs on this album, "Shepherds Delight" and "Mensforth Hill" are not even mentioned by any of the reviewers who dis this album. Too bad for them. There is something here for fans of reggae, electronica, jazz and folk, and it's all done in an original way. Anyone looking for songs that sound like (blank) will be disappointed.
Punk is great. I love driving around and screaming punk songs. Who doesn't. But the aim of "Sandinista" is a much more difficult. You've gotta sit with this album for a while, and think about and let it sink in.
It took quite a few listens, spread out over a couple of years, but this has become my favorite clash album, and one of the most heavily played cds i have. it just fits any occasion. it is so thoughtful, and the vibe from it is rebellious but very positive. i am lifted up by these songs.
Free Music Review: the best of the clash (if you like the later stuff more)
Hit: 5 Stars
yes london calling and give em enough rope is good original punk, but the clash improved so much into SANDANISTA. I have the 3 album set, vinyl and i love it. THESE SONG ROCK, they have ROOTS, REGGAE, they are awesome and ahead of their time in the experimentalism they have done. 6 STARS!