Album Rating: 3.0
It's too short
The problem with Sandinista! is that lurking within this triple album, lays an ambitious sextuple album that would have been truly remarkable. However, the Clash wimped-out and only gave us these thirty-six songs. Strummer and co. deserve some credit though; they relinquished all their profits on the first 200,000 copies sold, if the great men at Columbia Records would price the album as a double and not a triple. The suits agreed, because record executives are swell guys - all integrity, every one of them.
I digress. Enough of the history lesson and back to my disappointment:
What could have the Clash put on Sandanista! sides 7-12? How 'bout some barbershop harmonies, a bit of doo-wop, a charity single (heck, why not two?), arm pit fart noises, a cover of Stiff Little Fingers' "Nobody's Hero" LP, a sequel to "West Side Story", one of those duo - 'Michael Row Your Boat Ashore' deals, a xylophone solo(s), some spoken word poetry by Topper Headon about his love affair with needle drugs, some Latino disco, a how-to-win-at-blackjack self-hypnosis track, a couple of knock-knock jokes, a mini- rock opera about a Nicaraguan boy who grows up to be President, and re-recorded the second side to Give 'Em Enough Rope.
I mean seriously, you're the freakin' Clash! Get creative, fellas! These three-dozen songs are alright, but would it have killed them to even try and be a little more prolific? Instead, of greatness, we are left to live with the missed potential of Sandinista!. A short teaser and a mere faded whiff, to what could have been a Homeric-sized epic of an album.
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