Did The Clash Get Too Ambitious on Sandinista!?

The Clash : Washington Bullets

[Purchase]

On December 12, 1980 The Clash released Sandinista!, a three album 36-song set recorded in London, Manchester, Jamaica and New York. 

"It just grew," Strummer explained to Smash Hits. "We went into Electric Ladyland after the American tour in February and we just made some music and it just kept going on and on. Six months later we got into a studio over here and we cut some more stuff. We added it all up and we realized we weren't going to get it on our usual two and so we thought let's go for three."

The band had to forego royalties on the first 200,000 copies sold in the UK and take a 50% cut elsewhere.

Sandinista! is a slog to get through and just about everyone agrees it could have been cut down to a great single album and a very good double album.In every case you would want "Washington Bullets", once the name of the NBA team and one of Joe Strummer's most political song.

The killing clowns, the blood money men 

Are shooting those Washington bullets again

Although the album would eventually top the 1981 Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll, early reviews suggested The Clash let their ambition get the better of them. The punks said Sandinista! is not punk.

"We're gonna record exactly what we want to record," Joe Strummer declared to Smash Hits. "And nothing else. We never pay any attention until afterwards when the record is out and you're in Hamburg and there's some mob of punks shouting 'Sellout!' Then you start thinking 'I'm glad we put this record out before we met this bunch because we're right and they're wrong'. I know they are."

The album leaps from genre to genre as The Clash visit funk, reggae, dub ( for a few songs too many) and, on "The Magnificent Seven", even this new fangled genre known as rap.

It may all be a bit too much. Quick: name a great three disc album? All Things Must Pass? The final disc is made up of the forgettable Apple Jam. Yessongs? Why would anyone listen to a live album with muddy sound by a band that made its name in the studio? Even Public Image Ltd's Metal Box had three discs as a gimmick. No side totaling more than 13 minutes. And I'd argue it get tiresome in one sitting.

So here's the line-up of my single album version of Sandinista!:

SIDE ONE 

1. The Magnificent Seven 5:28

2. Hitsville U.K.               4:20 

3. Somebody Got Murdered 3:34 

4. Lightning Strikes           4:51 

5. Kingston Advice         2:36

time 20:49

6. Police On My Back   3:15 

7. The Call Up 5:25 8:40 

8. Washington Bullets 3:51 12:31

9.Up in Heaven (Not Only Here) 4:31 17:02

10. Charlie Don't Surf 4:55 21:57

time 21:57

What's yours????