Sandinista! (1980)

Sandinista! is the fourth studio album by the English rock band the Clash. It was released on 12 December 1980 as a triple album containing 36 tracks, with 6 songs on each side. It crosses various genres including funk, reggae, jazz, gospel, rockabilly, folk, dub, rhythm and blues, calypso, disco, and rap. For the first time, the band's songs were credited to the Clash as a group, rather than to Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. The band agreed to a decrease in album royalties in order to release the 3-LP at a low price.

Sandinista! was mostly well received, though there was criticism towards the large size of the triple album. Sandinista! is the lowest charting album for the Clash in their native United Kingdom. The album was influential in the punk rock movement with its experimental sound and was voted best album of the year in the Pazz & Jop critics poll in The Village Voice. In 2020 it was ranked number 323 on the Rolling Stone list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and Slant Magazine listed the album at number 85 on its "Best Albums of the 1980s" list.

Background and recording

The album was recorded over most of 1980, in London, Manchester, Jamaica and New York. It was produced by the band (primarily Mick Jones and Joe Strummer), recorded and mixed by Bill Price, and engineered by Jeremy "Jerry" Green (Wessex Sound Studios), J. P. Nichols (Electric Lady Studios), Lancelot "Maxie" McKenzie (Channel One Studios), and Bill Price (Pluto + Power Station Studios). Dub versions of some of the songs and toasting was done by Mikey Dread, who had first worked with the band for their 1980 single "Bankrobber". With Sandinista! the band reached beyond punk and reggae into dub, rhythm and blues, calypso, gospel, Jazz, and other genres. The album clearly displays the influence of reggae musician and producer Lee "Scratch" Perry (who had worked with the band on their 1977 single "Complete Control" and who had opened some of the band's shows during its stand at Bond's in New York in 1980), with a dense, echo-filled sound on even the straight rock songs.

When recording began in New York, bass guitarist Paul Simonon was busy making a film called Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, and he was replaced briefly by Ian Dury and the Blockheads bassist Norman Watt-Roy; this later caused some bad feeling when Watt-Roy and keyboard player Mickey Gallagher, a fellow Blockhead, claimed they were responsible for co-composing the song "The Magnificent Seven", as the song was based on a tune of theirs. Watt-Roy and Gallagher would subsequently be given a co-writing credit. Dread, too, was upset that he was not credited as the album's producer, although he was credited with "Version Mix". Other guests on the album include singer Ellen Foley (Jones' partner at the time), guitarist Ivan Julian formerly of the Voidoids, harmonica player Lew Lewis (formerly of Eddie and the Hot Rods), and Strummer's old friend and musical collaborator Tymon Dogg, who plays violin, sings on and wrote the track "Lose This Skin"; he later joined Strummer's band the Mescaleros. Gallagher's children also made appearances: his two sons, Luke and Ben, singing a version of "Career Opportunities" from the band's first album, and his daughter Maria singing a snippet of "The Guns of Brixton", from London Calling, at the end of the track "Broadway".

This is also the only Clash album on which all four members have a lead vocal. Drummer Topper Headon made a unique lead vocal contribution on the song "Ivan Meets G.I. Joe", and Simonon sings lead on "The Crooked Beat".

The song "Up in Heaven (Not Only Here)" borrowed some lyrics from the Phil Ochs song "United Fruit" featured on the album Sings for Broadside (released 1976).

The title refers to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and its catalogue number, 'FSLN1', refers to the abbreviation of the party's Spanish name, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional. The album title was chosen in response to a statement by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher advocating for a ban on public use of the Sandinistas' name.

Release

According to Joe Strummer, the decision to release a triple-LP was their way of mocking CBS for resisting their desire to release London Calling as a double album, then releasing Bruce Springsteen's double album The River less than a year later. Strummer took pleasure in the abundance, saying "It was doubly outrageous. Actually, it was triply outrageous." Mick Jones said, "I always saw it as a record for people who were, like, on oil rigs. Or Arctic stations. People that weren't able to get to the record shops regularly."

The band's wish to release the album at a low price was also met with resistance, and they had to forgo any royalties on the first 200,000 copies sold in the UK and a 50% cut in royalties elsewhere.