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This is a public service announcement!
Help make sense of this crazy world by listening to The Clash.
That’s what a lot of us have done for the past fifty years and it’s done us well, I think. Their music was always asking questions and giving you homework to do, but rewarded the listener for paying attention and doing a little bit of research with killer tunes, riffs and hooks. Politics and having a good time can exist together. I was just a kid when they were around, but liked them and bought a few of their records with my paper round money at the time. As the years have gone by, I have steadily grown a huge love and appreciation for them, and I am sure that’s a shared sentiment with many of you reading. One record though that can sometimes even divide fans of the band is their fourth album, Sandinista, released just before Christmas 1980.
The typical complaint being that the three-disc album is too long, blah, blah, blah. Or that it switches style too much and tackles too many genres. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve heard it all before. For most other people, and indeed critics at the time, this eclectic mix of rock, dub reggae, hip-hop and funk was fantastic and highly enjoyable. Sure, it’s a long album, but it plays like you have a cool radio station on or like a curated mixtape given to you by a friend. I love the switches of style and blends of sounds. Bottom line, it’s a great fuckin’ record and doesn’t need me to defend it.
I bought a copy sometime in the mid 80s and mine came with the two zine/newspaper inserts, which are cool and have shots of the band and cartoons and lyrics, etc. I had to buy a CD copy during my travels in the late 80s and 90s, but one way or another it’s been an album that I have never gone without. More recently, with the world situation looming darkly over all of us, I have found myself returning to the record frequently, and it’s never far from the turntable. Sometimes I’ll play the whole thing if I have time, but often I’ll just throw on a side or two and vibe off those tracks. There is a US promo out there that was released at the time that condensed the 36 tracks down to 12 on one LP, and there is an argument that could be a “perfect” version. I have a copy and we had one or two come through Sorry State some time ago.
As a DJ in later years, I regularly included Clash tunes in my sets. The dub and funk they were exploring sound great (especially on some of the 12” singles) and are just as impactful and powerful now. Throw on The Magnificent Seven and/or its dub version, The Magnificent Dance, and watch how the people smile. The song The Call Up is another one that had a profound effect on me as a kid. I had briefly flirted with the idea of a military career, but the impact of the Falklands war, Northern Ireland, and my continued education from music and football quickly put an end to that idea and that song was one that earwormed me at just the right time.
I don’t need to say anything more, really. This was just a, “what am I listening to?” segment of the newsletter this time around. The Clash rule, and that’s a fact.
However, if you haven’t given Sandinista a listen recently, stick it on. It sounds as fresh as the day it was released.
That’s all from me. Cheers - Dom