Sandinista!

Rate It! Avg: 4.5 (417 ratings)
Sample Album
Sandinista! album cover
Album Information
  • Artist: The Clash (See All Albums by The Clash)

  • Date Released: Jan 25, 2000

  • Genre: Rock/Pop, Style: Rock

  • Label: Epic

  • Copyright: (P) 1980 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT (UK) Limited

Total Tracks: 36   Total Length: 144:09

eMusic Review 0

Avatar Image
Ira Robbins

eMusic Contributor

Ira Robbins co-founded Trouser Press magazine in 1974. (Think of it as a pre-Internet music blog). He was later pop music editor at Newsday and has written for ...more »

06.30.09
The Clash, Sandinista!
2000 | Label: Epic

Sandinista! has too much of everything — except the visceral rage that drove the first two albums and hardened the third. It's a warm and loose family affair, rich with eclectic highlights, that drifts along for more than two hours and occasionally dips well below reasonable standards of quality and sense. The stylistic inclusiveness (rap, calypso, rockabilly, Motown, dub, more) foretells Strummer's post-Clash career, but obscures its achievements in the ill-considered surplus. At its best, Sandinista! is a joyful jukebox: music that rollicks and bounces rather than batters. At its worst, it's sodden with filler and unmitigated self-indulgence. After such monuments as “Hitsville U.K.,” “Somebody Got Murdered,” “The Call Up,” “Police on My Back” and “Ivan Meets G.I. Joe,” the Clash all but abandon ship, letting the album sink to “Career Opportunities” sung by children and an instrumental with sheep noises.

Write a Review 17 Member Reviews

Please register before you review a release. Register

user avatar

The Clash's (Black and) White Album

chickenfoof

Yeah yeah, it's about a side too long (for those of you who remember when it was a triple album). But the boys left EVERYTHING on the table here, and almost all of it works. And for all its tour-de-forcefulness, it holds together incredibly well. Essentially listening. If you have to have one Clash CD... well, you'll need to buy two.

user avatar

Best Album of All Time?

TheodoreJackson

Maybe, maybe not. Definitely in my all time top 10. While some can't see past the seemingly indulgent moments of this record, I find virtually all of it daring at the very least. Other songs that individuals refer to as garbage I consider great. While I love all of the Clash albums, this one holds up the best over time.

user avatar

cobains a goof

ganjangles

this is one of the most creative albums out there. when it came out it was the truest of punk from some of the originals compared to the cookie cutters who played what everyone else did. I couldn't believe kurt - not a punk - cobain said this of all albums turned him off to punk. clueless... get this is hear what punk was about - not a music genre - an attitude and outlook

user avatar

get this

dbitter

you're not right in the head if you don't get this album. I could listen to it over and over and over.

user avatar

A Dedicated Listener Am I

peacenik

I bought this album when it came out (3 disks...a bargain in 1980) and spent much of the next few years discovering new layers in the music. At its heart, this album reflects a band that chose to take advantage of the commercial success of "London Calling" by exploring a wide range of sounds. Where "Sandinista!" fails for some as a pop record - i.e. have a consistent sound or big hit singles - it succeeds as a heroic effort to escape the emergent conventions of punk rock. It's important to note that the one thing connecting this album to its predecessors is the sincerity and passion with which the group addressed their subject matter. It is fun, fascinating, cannot be consumed in a single sitting and 30 years later, I still find new aspects of "Sandinista!" to be excited about and "new" songs to appreciate.

user avatar

If I could only have one

nobody13

If I could only have one album. Sandinista! There is sooo much here. The good, the bad and the fabulous. Jazz, dub, punk. Yeah this may not be the "best" Album ever, but it is the one I come back to again and again. Blessings to Joe.

user avatar

Grown Up Album

PabloPeligroArenas

When this album was first released I absolutely hated it, I was however a naive 17 year old that had grown up with the sounds of White Riot & Tommy Gun & Clampdown and was full of the ramalalama three chords and out punk rock fire. At first listen Sandinista broke my heart. Listening to it now it is simply amazing album and I agree with Joe Strummers claim that its is a wonderful album "warts and all". What must be remembered about The Clash is that they put out these records at single album price and rather than them being some kind of bloated prog rock monstrosity they were seen as the best value for money they could get their fans.

user avatar

Full of Flavors...

hank3nut

you rarely get with today's cookie-cutter music. The Clash remains one of the most important and influential bands ever.

user avatar

bass, guitar, and drum

thegrandwazoo

if your seeking out a rhythm that can take the pressure off--this'll do when picking up an ole bang-a-rang punk dub

user avatar

The Clash!

RABBIT

Awesome in their ealier or late periods. It's all good. Lots of experimentation in this one but they pull it off well once again.

Recommended Albums

eMusic Features

Six Degrees of American Idiot
0

Six Degrees of American Idiot

By Christopher R. Weingarten, eMusic Contributor

It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »

Six Degrees of Loaded
0

Six Degrees of Loaded

By Matthew Fritch, eMusic Contributor

It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »

Joe Strummer: The Leo Connection
0

Joe Strummer: The Leo Connection

By Robert Phoenix, eMusic Contributor

One of the astrological aspects that sets the punk movement apart from its musical counterparts in the 60s and early 70s is a sub-generational shift from Uranus in Cancer to Uranus in Leo. The astrological chart for the United States as a whole is heavily influenced and populated by Cancerian planets - that's what makes the nation conservative at its core. Cancer is anything but revolutionary: it's all about hearth and home, nurturing and providing… more »

Icon: The Clash
0

Icon: The Clash

By Ira Robbins, eMusic Contributor

It took the Clash just six years to go from Westway to the world, to evolve from the small-bore punk vitriol of "London's Burning" to the sophisticated Top 40 global consciousness of "Rock the Casbah." Unfettered by careerist logic and armed with passion, conviction and a flair for dramatic poses, they were the most exciting - and unpredictable - band of their era. Inscrutable, confounding and glorious in their imperfections, the Clash inscribed a cultural… more »

They Say All Music Guide

The Clash sounded like they could do anything on London Calling. For its triple-album follow-up, Sandinista!, they tried to do everything, adding dub, rap, gospel, and even children’s choruses to the punk, reggae, R&B, and roots rock they already were playing. Instead of presenting a band with a far-reaching vision, like London Calling did, Sandinista! plays as a messy, confused jumble, which means that its numerous virtues are easy to ignore. Amid all the dub experiments, backward tracks, unfinished songs, and instrumentals, there are a number of classic Clash songs that rank among the band’s best, including “Police on My Back,” “The Call Up,” “Somebody Got Murdered,” “Charlie Don’t Surf,” “Hitsville U.K.,” and “Lightning Strikes (Not Once but Twice),” yet it’s difficult for anyone but the most dedicated listeners to find them. A few of the failed ideas were worth exploring, but even more — like the children’s choir version of “Career Opportunities” or the Terry Doggs song “Lose This Skin” — weren’t even worth pursuing. As the cliché says, there’s a great single album within these three records, and those songs make Sandinista! worthwhile. Nevertheless, its sloppy attack is disheartening after the tour de force of London Calling and the focused aggression of The Clash. [In 2000 Columbia/Legacy reissued, remastered, and restored the artwork for Sandinista!] – Stephen Thomas Erlewine

more »