The Clash
Sandinista!

THE REVIEW

When one afternoon a long time ago I laid my hands for the first time on this triple Clash album from 1980, from the first listen I realized that I was facing something never conceived before, something that would shake up the music scene that characterized the period straddling the '70s and '80s. I was listening to an incredibly multifaceted work, with a thousand facets, an overwhelming big bang of genius and creativity, something that could no longer be cataloged with meager and reductive labels, an indefinable something, yet miraculously concrete and real. And the more I went on, the more I was inevitably captured, amazed, in a vortex of the most disparate sensations, and in my naivety as a young girl I realized that it was possible to make a multitude of musical genres, cultural expressions, and sound effects coexist in a single monumental global work.

Try to imagine going back in time by 24 years, placing the vinyl on the turntable, down with the needle, and "The Magnificent Seven" catches you by surprise with its compelling rap that won't let you stop dancing, transitioning from the carefree and light-hearted female chorus of "Hitsville UK" to the quirky reggae/dub of "Junco Partner", diving then into the hypnotic and spatial funk of "Ivan Meets G.I. Joe", sung by Topper Headon, making you believe you've ended up in a video game from the year 2000; slip into the cheerful and lively rock of "The Leader" and "Somebody Got Murdered", into the waltz of "Rebel Waltz", surprise yourself with the frenzied swing of "Look Here", piano and xylophone through the roof, and with the gospel of "The Sound Of Sinners"; unleash with the ear-splitting "Police On My Back", get moved with the painful and touching "The Call Up" and with the jazzy and nocturnal "Broadway", which tells of a tramp "born during the depression", in my opinion with "Ivan Meets G.I. Joe", one of the "highest" points of the album and the Clash in general. And then the aggressive and incisive "Lose This Skin", the lively "Washington Bullets" with Caribbean rhythms, the soft and elegant funk of "Version City", leading up to the childish ballad "Career Opportunities" and the particular dub of "Shepherd's Delight", not forgetting memorable tracks like "If The Music Could Talk", "Lightning Strikes" on the same hard-hitting and rap wave as "The Magnificent Seven", and the splendid and solemn "The Street Parade".

Sandinista! is an album that to define courageous is still too little, full of moments of extraordinary beauty and inventiveness alternated by some less successful and raw experimental parentheses but of undeniable originality; at the time you either loved it from the first impact or you hated it, there were no half measures for such a singular work, so vast in its duration and complexity, so pleasantly sophisticated and it has always been the opinion of its detractors to consider it, wrongly, overly ambitious, verbose, with too much going on and not very homogeneous. The Clash had matured and, fully aware of their compositional and instrumental capabilities and their ability to write committed and anything but crude lyrics, they had dared to embark on a primitive path of global music, of World Music, out of a desire to experiment, to distance themselves from fashions, to engage with cultural and musical realities different and far from old England and to have that social and political commitment that distinguished them from all others. With Sandinista! this eclectic and surprising group bequeaths us a timeless masterpiece that has little in common with the musical parameters of the time and that still today disconcerts and fascinates those who listen to it for the first time and those who love and have loved it unconditionally.