CD Odyssey Disc 674: The Clash

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.

1.  London Calling:  5 stars (reviewed at Disc 258)
2. Self-Titled:  4 stars (reviewed at Disc 256)
3. Black Market Clash:  3 stars (reviewed at Disc 16)
4. Give ‘Em Enough Rope:  3 stars (reviewed at Disc 227)
5. Combat Rock:  3 stars (reviewed at Disc 474).
6. 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

CD Odyssey Disc 474: The Clash

This has been a long week, principally because our shower isn’t working.  I’m just not much of a bath guy.  It takes too long to run one, you’re never fully submerged and let’s face it, washing your hair in the tub is awkward.

Ah well, at least there’s music.

Disc 474 is…Combat Rock

Artist: The Clash

Year of Release: 1982

What’s up with the Cover?  Just a bunch of ne’er-do-wells hanging out at the railway tracks.  One band member commits the cardinal sin of wearing his own band’s shirt.  It is not cool to wear your own band’s shirt – only other bands.

How I Came To Know It:  As I’ve said before, Sheila put me on to the Clash in general.  When I met her, she had this album and “London Calling.”

How It Stacks Up:  We have five Clash albums (as I was recently reminded we are still missing “Sandanista”).  Of the five I must put “Combat Rock” last, or fifth.  Truth hurts.  Since this is my last Clash review until I get Sandanista, it is customary that I quickly recap and rate what has come before.  So in order of preference:

1.  London Calling:  5 stars (reviewed at Disc 258)
2. Self-Titled:  4 stars (reviewed at Disc 256)
3. Black Market Clash:  3 stars (reviewed at Disc 16)
4. Give ‘Em Enough Rope:  3 stars (reviewed at Disc 227)
5. Combat Rock:  3 stars (reviewed right here).

Rating:  3 stars, but just barely

Even a band as influential and amazing as the Clash was bound to lay an egg, and “Combat Rock” is that egg.  The record has enough high points to still be good in places, but overall this was a disappointment.

“Combat Rock” sees the bad continue with their experimentation with other genres.  This I approve of in their career overall, but just because it is a good idea generally doesn’t mean it always works out.

It starts out strong, with the very punk “Know Your Rights” – a song that has me wishing every public service announcement had guitar.  Sadly, few do.

One of the challenges I have with this album is that two of the songs were unavoidable in 1982, and weren’t good enough to stand that kind of exposure.  “Should I Stay or Should I Go” is particularly annoying.  It is catchy enough the first time you hear it, but at its core it is simply a novelty hit like so many others.  From the first time I heard it I knew it was destined to be overplayed and then sung off-key by drunks at karaoke bars for the next thirty years.  This has well and truly wrecked it as a song, and it just isn’t musically interesting enough to recover.

“Rock the Casbah” also got a bad case of overplay in the day (and the video of the Clash prancing about the desert is truly stupid) but it is at least a better song.  It may just be a pop song, but it is a pretty catchy pop song.  While this one used to annoy me in the day, sufficient time has elapsed that this time around I found it was relatively rehabilitated.

Many of the other songs take the band in strange directions, including jazz influences and even what sounds like early attempts at spoken word resembling a kind of English proto-rap.  Unfortunately, Strummer isn’t really suited to that, and his attempts at catch-phrasing his way through a beat make him sound more like a soccer hooligan than a rap artist.

The worst example of this is “Red Angel Dragnet” where he sounds like he was taught to speak by the kids who rescue Mel Gibson in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.  Also weak is “Ghetto Defendant” which starts out with a promising relaxed reggae beat, but starts doing a weird techno-rap non-sequiturs like:

“Do the worm on necropolis

Slam dance cosmopolis

Enlighten the populace.”

It made me think of the 1927 movie “Metropolis” but not in the good way I usually do.

For all this criticism, there are some standout tracks on “Combat Rock” that lift the quality of the overall album, even although most of them were not well known outside of diehard Clash fans.

“Overpowered by Funk” is a fine display of funk guitar and bass that show the Clash are far more than a pop punk act.  For all their other failed experimentation on this album (the unlistenable jazz/folk fusion of “Sean Flynn” comes to mind), “Overpowered by Funk” really works, and dare I say it, overpowers you with funk.  It is easy to see how Strummer and Mick Jones would go on to form the dance-hall friendly Big Audio Dynamite when you hear this song.  It is fun, cheeky and makes you want to get up and move your hips.

My favourite song on the album by a wide margin is “Straight to Hell,” a reggae inspired dirge about the hopelessness of the underclasses both in the rusted out industrial cities of England and the less-than-utopian third world communist state of Vietnam.  Joe Strummer’s vocals have never sounded so raw or heartfelt on this song, which for all of “Combat Rock’s” other shortcomings, is one of my all-time favourite Clash songs.

I think part of my disappointment with “Combat Rock” is how much more I enjoy the other records by the Clash.  This one suffers by comparison, but that doesn’t make it bad.  It just makes it merely good, when I wanted it to be more than good.

Best tracks:  Know Your Rights, Rock the Casbah, Straight to Hell, Overpowered by Funk

CD Odyssey Disc 371: Jimmy Cliff

After a couple straight albums of morose dirges, I was needing something jumpy. Enter...reggae.

Disc 371 is...The Harder They Come

Artist: Jimmy Cliff, and a few others

Year of Release: 1973

What’s Up With The Cover?: A series of scenes that I think (based on limited knowledge) are from the movie of the same name. Whatever the origin, it is a groovy cover, and would make a great poster.

How I Came To Know It: "The Harder They Come" is one of those reputation albums; its reputation is so large, and it is cited as an inspiration by so many other artists, that I had to give it a try to see what the fuss was all about. Of course I took my sweet time getting around to it, and only got this record in the last couple of years.

How It Stacks Up: I only have this one Jimmy Cliff album. As soundtracks go, I have 23 or 24, depending on how you count. I'd have to put this one top four of those.

Rating: 4 stars.

Earlier tonight, I had a discussion with Sheila about where I file this album. Like a lot of music collectors, I am obsessed with keeping my albums properly sorted. While I've been tempted over the years to re-arrange in more creative manners, a la John Cusack in High Fidelity, I have so far stuck to the less creative, but more functional decision to go with the alphabet.

Even so, this creates decisions on where something should go. Does "Steve Miller Band" go under the S or under the M? Does Shane MacGowan and the Popes go under "Shane MacGowan" or "The Popes"?

In the case of "the Harder They Come" I had it filed under C for Jimmy Cliff rather than soundtracks. I'm not sure why I went that way, although when pressed I argued that the cover said "Jimmy Cliff" on it, not "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack." Still, of the twelve tracks, only six are Jimmy Cliff. The other songs are performed by fellow Jamaican artists like the Melodians, the Maytals and the Slickers (great names all).

I think deep down, though, I filed it among the regular artists as a sign of respect. I tend to dismiss soundtracks as sort of bastardized byproducts, generated as secondary markets for the films they support. Not that I'm overwise about it; I have a couple dozen soundtracks, and another half dozen scores. It is just that "The Harder They Come" the soundtrack seems to have cast a much longer shadow than the film of the same name.

This record was a joy to listen to, and my only regret was that it was so short I got through it in a single day. I was sorely tempted to keep it in my MP3 player for another day just to get another listen, but the Odyssey waits for no man.

I am not a devotee of reggae music. In fact, to this point I've only done two other entries with that tag attached. The one is "Smokin' the Goats" by One, which is more a pop/reggae crossover than true reggae, and the other is "Black Market Clash" which made the list for a few reggae tracks dressed up as punk. The only other reggae I've ever owned was a tape of Bob Marley's "Legend" purchased through Columbia House.

This album makes me regret my dearth of reggae, and is an excellent gateway to the style. The instantly recognizeable reggae beat is infectious. To resist bobbing your head to this stuff would require some fused vertebrae.

The record begins with "You Can Get It If You Really Want It" (another version of which makes an appearance at Track 11). "You Can Get It..." is a song of boundless optimism, the more so considering its origins are found in the poverty stricken streets of 1970s Jamaica. It's message is simple: you can get it if you really want it, but you must try. Simple in theory, but a lot tougher to maintain that sunny disposition when you're at the bottom.

Even better, is the more aggressive "The Harder They Come," which is a seamless amalgam of the defiant and angry disenfranchised young man and a genuine propensity for forgiveness. The singer even takes time to say a prayer that his oppressors be forgiven, "they know not what they've done."

On this listen, I was also drawn in to the slower songs. "Many Rivers To Cross" starts with an organ and maintains a reverent gospel edge throughout its sad lament, making you weary and inspired at the same time. The reggae beat is so subdued that the song is really more soul than anything.

The reeggae on "The Harder They Come" reminds me of soul music, in that the lyrics themselves are very basic, but when sung right they are so filled honest emotion that they draw you in. That infectious beat helps a lot as well.

"Sitting in Limbo" features a rolling steady beat and penny whistle that would be equally at home as British folk pop (the good kind). This record brings you a Jamaican sound, but the music is universal, and the record finds common connections to other sounds of the period throughout.

Finally, it was great to hear the originals of a number of songs I'd heard first as remakes, notably "Johnny Too Bad" (Steve Earle), "Pressure Drop" (The Clash) and "Rivers of Babylon" (Boney M and Steve Earle again). In every case, the original was better, although the Clash give the Maytals a run for their money on "Pressure Drop."

For a record so replete with scenes of a hard-scrabble life, "The Harder They Come" filled me with a joyful optimism after only a couple listens. Good music will do that.

Best tracks: You Can Get It If You Really Want, Many Rivers To Cross, The Harder They Come, Johnny Too Bad, Pressure Drop, Sitting In Limbo

CD Odyssey Disc 163: One

The CD Odyssey is in one of its "all over the map" phases again, and it has landed upon one of the only reggae records in my collection. Not true reggae, really, more of a reggae/pop/rock thing going on.

Disc 163 is...Smokin' The Goats

Artist: One

Year of Release: 1994

What’s Up With The Cover?: I believe this is some sort of tie-dye feeling colour scheme, with a close up graphic of a goat's horn (no doubt for smokin' as per the title). I think up close the goat's horn looks like the end of a rattlesnake's tail.

How I Came To Know It: I heard about this album through my friend, Kelly, who brought it over a couple of times. Kelly was into reggae back in 1994 as I recall. Nowadays he's more for the death metal. I'd say something nasty here, but I've got enough of my own musical skeletons, without shakin' anyone else's bones.

How It Stacks Up: I've only got this one "One" album. I don't know if they have any more. I think they are a pretty obscure Canadian band - I'm not even sure if they are still together.

Rating: 3 stars.

This was a fun album to drive home to with the top down. There is something about a reggae beat that makes you relax and feel summery. I relaxed, kicked back and sang along from time to time. Don't worry though, I kept my eye on the road, friends. Enra-ha and all that.

This album's best song is a five star bubble-gum pop classic, "Wide Load". It is a playful track about heavy girls - the best since Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls". It incorporates pretty much every goofy one-liner joke on the subject (She's got more rolls than a bakery shop/you'd be crushed if she were on top," etc.) but manages to avoid being mean. In fact, the final stanza is all about how we overemphasize someone's weight, and how we oughtta cut that out.

Of course, you could argue that is a bit rich after all the joke lines that fill the first two thirds of the song, but it just never manages to cross the line, despite all evidence to the contrary. I think it must be the reggae beat - it just makes everything seem so much more relaxed and uncomplicated.

The other tracks aren't as memorable, but there are quite a few good ones, and no real stinkers. The album is just a good groove, and the band even manages to sneak in some serious topics into the discussion, including that ubiquitous topic for all reggae music - legalizing marijuana. They also have a couple of great songs decrying rude people ("Bully On the Dance Floor", "So Rude"). These appealed to me, as I can't stand rude people. For starters - tailgaters and people who talk at the movie theatre.

Um...cut that out, rude people!

Mostly though, the album is just a good groove. Fun for hangin' out, or maybe a little goofy dancing commonly associated with outdoor concerts. I'm sure I've danced that way to it, but mercifully in the privacy of my own home.

As an aside, this album was up for a 1995 Juno (it didn't win). That year, Celine Dion's "Colour of My Love" beat out Blue Rodeo's "Five Days in July" and Pearl Jam's "Vs." in a couple of different categories.

Wow - some facts are so awful, not even a reggae beat can make it seem OK.

In summary, if you want a fun summer album that'll make you feel like relaxing on the beach, or driving with the top down, this is a good one.

Best tracks: Wide Load, 54-46, Bully On the Dance Floor, Kind Buds, So Rude, Magdelin

CD Odyssey Disc 16: The Clash

Here's an album that was randomly selected just when I was feeling the need for something rebellious.

Disc 16 is...Black Market Clash
Artist: The Clash

Year of Release: 1983

How I Came To Know It:After years of wrongly hating the Clash through high school, a bunch of people showed me the error of my ways. Sheila, Casey and Nick for the Clash as a band, but for this album in particular, I think it was a music appreciation night with Nick that flipped the switch.

How It Stacks Up: We've got 5 Clash albums. I like them all, and I'd put "Black Market Clash" at about 3rd - or right in the middle.

Rating: 3 stars.

The Clash are known as the act that launced punk into the mainstream. It is a well-deserved reputation, but what I like most about this particular album - Black Market Clash - is its variety.

"Capital Radio One" kicks things off with that driving angry sound that made the Clash famous, and it is a great track for sure. However, I really love the reggae influences on this album - which I think are more prevalent here than on any other Clash record.

"Pressure Drop" sounds like a straight up reggae track to my untrained ear. My favourite track, "Bank Robber" has a real reggae feel to it. "Bank Robber" was the track that my friend Nick played that really hooked me on this album. I love the opening line:

My Daddy was a bankrobber
He never hurt nobody
He just liked to live that way
He loved to steal your money

It is such a great expression of basic rebellion, delivered in a totally non-threatening way. You almost want this guy's Dad to rob your bank.

This album also has a very cool instrumental "Time Is Tight" which once featured on my "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" mixed CD (where I picked songs that were hard to identify with the artist.

I love this song's use of surfer guitar. It is another example of how "Black Market Clash" is a great departure point for the Clash - it is too bad that the departure turned out to be the end of the band shortly thereafter.

Still - we ended up with Big Audio Dynamite. Not exactly the Clash, but who hasn't partied down at the Globe? Ah, but that is for another CD Odyssey entry, my friends...

Best tracks: Bank Robber, Capital Radio One, Time Is Tight, Pressure Drop