After spending a reasonable amount of time on this planet, I’m convinced there are two types of people in the world:
Those who recognize that Sandinista! is a bloody masterpiece, and those who don’t get it.
(In case you missed parts one and two you can check them out HERE and HERE.)
A lot more on this band, and this album, another time.
But for now, let’s examine a handful of songs that make up this masterwork.
White man’s rap, funky as all get out, and the corporate grind nailed for all time (JOE STRUMMER IS GOD!):
“Somebody Got Murdered”: Is it just me or does this song, not only in sound but execution, predict (and perfect) the very distinctive sort of music both The Smiths and especially R.E.M. would make in the early-to-mid ’80s? (In fairness, The Clash may have picked up a trick or two from The Cure by this point.)
I’ve been very tempted
To grab it from the till
I’ve been very hungry
But not enough to kill…
Listen to the vocals and subject matter (and the matter-of-fact depiction of murder and its aftermath, understated lyrically in the same ways The Smiths’ “Death of a Disco Dancer” manages to be. On the other hand, contrast the laconic, serenely urgent –or urgently serene– delivery of Mick Jones as opposed to the inimitable melodrama of Morrissey’s “J’accuse”). Then listen to the jangly guitars and tempo that keeps promising to crest but never quite needs to, and consider so many of R.E.M.’s early tunes.
Somebody got murdered
His name cannot be found
A small stain on the pavement
They’ll scrub it off the ground…
“Somebody Got Murdered” is archetypcal Clash: gritty without being affected, true without being self-righteous, sardonic without the self-consciousness that most bands (before and after) could not avoid.
The Clash did not do it first and they may not have done it best (whatever “it” is), but no other band has ever done it the way The Clash did it. It’s not so much that it seems effortless so much as they were unable to do it differently. And that is yet another reason they remain The Only Band That Mattered.
And a three-for that just skims the surface of the awesomeness this album delivers, all the way through:
Did anyone have any other questions? (Didn’t think so.)
