Sandinista!

Every great band has that experimental album that music historians debate at nauseum for decades. U2 did it with the release of Zooropa, and most notably, The Beatles’ White Album is still the standard when it comes to experimental albums. Whether these albums were a success or not lies purely in the hands or rather ears of each listener. Many people believe the White Album is nothing but a bunch of noise with a few hits thrown into the mix, and others regard it as pure genius, and a masterpiece.

The Clash’s 1980 release of Sandinista! is in the same category as the previously mentioned albums…regarded by some as trash, and to some, musical treasure. I myself have had an undying love for The Clash ever since I heard Train In Vain on the radio years ago. Suddenly a musical interest that had me listening to just their hits, had me delving into their entire catalogue, downloading and buying their albums, and finding live tracks to listen to.

Sandinista! was the last great Clash mountain I had yet to conquer after going through Combat Rock and Give Em Enough Rope. So I decided to sit down at the Jerome Library’s Music Archival Collection at Bowling Green State University and listen to it the old school way…on vinyl.

What was visually pleasing to me was the Armagideon Times insert in the vinyl case. Inside was a mock-newspaper style cartoon with most of the lyrics and cartoon versions of the songs all over the place. My favorite was the drawing for “Ivan Meets G.I. Joe” where clearly you can see two enemies in a dance-off at a Studio 54-esque dance floor that soon turns into an all out nuclear war.

The music itself is an interesting mix of old-school Clash rock and roll, reggae, jazz, funk, world beats, overdubbing, and even a track that’s purely a previous track being played backwards with major overdubs inserted.

Side One & Two

The first portion of this triple LP record is very rock and pop oriented with songs like “Hitsville UK” and “The Magnificent Seven”. ”Ivan Meets G.I. Joe” finds The Clash experimenting with disco…yes you heard me right, the same band that wrote “Know Your Rights” wrote a disco song…and it’s good.

Also included are the introductions of some dubbing and reggae beats as heard in “Rebel Waltz” and “One More Dub”. One also mustn’t forget the cover of Junco Partner that Joe Strummer covered earlier with his band before The Clash, called the 101ers. The reggae heavy beats could make even the staunchest metal head get down and bop his or her head to the cool rhythms.

Side Three & Four

This area of the album brings in interesting experimentation by the band. We also get the first taste of Clash collaborator and friend, the late Mikey Dread, whose reggae background is noticeable in tracks like “If Music Could Talk”. The rock and roll punk sound comes back in “Police On My Back” featuring Jones on vocals:

Following up to “Police On My Back” is the politically-driven “The Call Up” and “Washington Bullets”, which is also a politically-driven song, but much like the proceeding songs, has an obvious reggae sound to it. ”Bullets” also notes The Clash’s apparent left-wing politics and their views on the United States’ foreign policy at the time.

Side Five & Six

Friend and collaborator of the band, Tymon Dogg leads the way into the final portion of Sandinista! with a rocking string introduction that begins “Lose This Skin”. At first, this Dogg’s voice sounds like a sheep getting clubbed over the head repeatedly but once you listen to it on repeat a few times, you might find that it fits the song perfectly.

“Charlie Don’t Surf” is a reasonably decent song, fairly unknown in the band’s catalogue but would fit on anyone’s iPod mix if you’re looking for a relatively slower song to listen to. Then we have “Mensforth Hill”, which for all purposes is “Something About England” played backwards with overdubs. Usually a song like this gets overlooked as “the song that the band got lazy on/someone’s been smoking pot in the production studio again” however if you listen all the way through, instrumentally it’s not a bad piece. Most of the rest of the album is more songs using overdubs and a version of “Career Opportunities” sang by keyboardist Mickey Gallagher’s sons Luke and Ben…which is a sure to miss track for sure.

Conclusion

So where does this leave Sandinista! in the world of experimental rock albums? If we’re giving grades, I give it an overall grade of B+. As mentioned before I’m a huge fan of The Clash, probably more so than the normal music fan should be; however there’s some tracks on here that just don’t make sense to me, specifically the middle-school version of “Career Opportunities”. That’s okay though, that’s why it’s an experimental album. Bands aren’t always going to make pure gold and The Clash is no exception-not every album can turn out like London Calling.

When it’s all said and done, this is an album worth listening to…give yourself enough time though as it’s over two hours long. Joe and the boys put out a quality album here and when compared to the famous albums, I believe it ranks right up there with the White Album and much better than Zooropa.

Finally here’s an awesome video of Mick Jones and his daughter Lauren singing “Hitsville UK” live in 2008.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSObWfwuf1M

I hope this will spur you to check out the musical experiments of the only band that ever mattered.