Greetings, gentle reader! It’s
been almost a week since I did a blog entry – did you wonder where I was?
Perhaps you thought I was on another holiday in Italy? Nope – I was just
reviewing a behemoth of a record, and it took a whole week to listen to the damned
thing.
Before I get to that, I want to
give a shout out to my friend and fellow music enthusiast, Randall. In the wee
hours I’ve often waxed poetic with Randall about my love for Blue Oyster Cult,
and emboldened by his interest, I decided to pass along a list of my favourite
tracks.
Not only did Randall listen to all
the music, he listened to it multiple times, and then gave a thoughtful review
of my selections, and Blue Oyster Cult in general. You can read it all at his
blog right here. I was really touched that he took the time to get to
know a band that has meant so much to me over the years. Thanks, Randall!
Disc 674 is…. Sandinista!
Artist: The Clash
Year of Release: 1980
What’s up with the Cover? The band stands in
front of a brick wall, looking very urban and austere…or painfully out of
place. I wouldn’t be surprised if after the photo was taken they were all
mugged. Sadly, the thieves did not steal the satchels full of songs they ended
up putting on “Sandinista!”
How I Came To Know It: There is a guy who works across
the hall from me (let’s call him “Tom,” since that’s his name). He also likes
music and sometimes we shoot the breeze about it. Turns out he likes the Clash
as well, so I asked him what his favourite album was – he surprised me by
saying “Sandinista!” I didn’t own it, so I decided to see what all the fuss was
about.
How It Stacks Up: Let’s just say I wasn’t impressed with Tom’s
selection. I have six Clash albums and “Sandinista!” is easily the worst. Here’s
the full list, since I’ve once again finished reviewing my Clash collection.
- London Calling:
5 stars (reviewed at Disc 258)
- Self-Titled:
4 stars (reviewed at Disc 256)
- Black
Market Clash: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 16)
- Give ‘Em
Enough Rope: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 227)
- Combat
Rock: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 474).
- Sandinista:
2 stars (reviewed right here).
Rating: 2 stars
More is not always better. When you decide to put every
idea you come up with in the studio on a single record without any editing you
don’t get a modern classic, you get a bloated mess – and that’s what “Sandinista!”
is; a triple album (yes, triple) with
36 songs that should have been an EP with eight.
The album starts out very promising with the opening
track “The Magnificent Seven”
delivering one of the best funky bass-lines in music. Bassist Paul Simonon is
never better, not even on later classics like “Overpowered by Funk.” Strummer’s rhythmic singing here is proto-rap,
and totally works.
Whither the rest of the album? Unfortunately, a long
descent into self-congratulatory excess.
Stylistically, the record is all over the place –
punk, rock, jazz and a whole lot of reggae and dub. This is not automatically a
bad thing – an album with range can be a good thing. However, when you have
three albums and 36 songs it slowly becomes loose and directionless. It was
like they were committed to doing it all on one record, without realizing some
of it wasn’t worth doing at all.
The very next track after the magnificent “Magnificent Seven” is the sugary pop
song, “Hitsville UK.” It has a bass line
that sounds like it was inspired by “Mama’s
little baby loves shortnin’ bread” but with less seriousness. I think the
Clash intended this song to be a critique of these kinds of songs, but when you
stray this close to the line, you become the monster you’re trying to mock.
I could go on, but frankly I don’t have time to
explain why I don’t like the songs on this album – there’s too damned many of
them. Here’s a few highlights, though, since you did come here to read about
music.
“If Music
Could Talk” features a directionless jazz saxophone, with the boys kind-of-sort-of
talking over top of it about music. This song proves that just because music
can talk doesn’t mean it’ll have anything meaningful to say.
Other songs have weird dialogue intros and outros,
like on “Let’s Go Crazy” which would
be a pretty cool song with Caribbean drum beats (yes, “Sandinista!” has those
as well). However, I don’t want to listen to some goofy rant every time I
listen to this song.
And the true low is the use of kids singing for no
apparent reason. At the end of the already rambling song “Broadway” we have a little kid singing “Guns of Brixton” and doing his best to wreck it for me. Later, they
repeat the error with a grade-school remake of “Career Opportunities.” It felt like I was trapped at a small town variety
show.
Also it bears repeating: seriously, guys – a triple album? What the hell?
The Clash have great musicianship and loads of
talent and there are plenty of good tracks as well on “Sandinista!” “Something About England” is thoughtful
and catchy social commentary. “Corner
Soul” captures the magic of pop crossing with punk that they did so well on
their first album and “London Calling.” The reggae inspired songs show an
honest love for that style, and the Clash do it well (although a lot of these
tracks suffer from weird dialogue pieces noted above).
I’ll keep this album because the good songs are very
good, but they can’t hold the album up on their own. The bottom line is there’s
just too much musical masturbation to get through to find them.
According to Wikipedia (which is never wrong), “Sandinista!”
is the highest charting album in Canada out of the Clash’s entire collection,
making it to number three. That’s higher than “Combat Rock,” and “London
Calling” (both of which peaked at #12. What the hell were you thinking, Canada?
Best tracks: The Magnificent
Seven, Something About England, Corner Soul, The Sound of Sinners, Police on My
Back, The Call Up, Washington Bullets, Lose this Skin
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