3. The ClashSandinista!
That record was big in America but I feel like the English music press kind of got it backwards with The Clash, because they celebrate the first album and then turn on them and accuse them of not being punk rock anymore. But I actually think The Clash are much more interesting by Sandinista!; it’s when they began to stretch and, in my opinion, became a better band. This LP was recorded in New York and I think you could make a case that by this point The Clash were a New York band as much as an English band. Anyway, this album is probably too long; it’s a triple LP so it certainly stretches out. Maybe it’s a flawed masterpiece, but there’s all sorts of great stuff in there and I think it’s an incredible achievement and record. I saw The Clash play Bond’s in New York around that time in 1981; they played six shows. I was at the first night, then the fire department shut the club down because they had oversold it, so The Clash had to more than double it to seventeen nights, which was nice of them. Grandmaster Flash opened but got booed off the stage. It’s amazing to think that The Clash had all these awful meathead American fans.
