[jhofmann]

One of the most pretentious albums of the '80s:

The Clash's SANDINISTA... also, an embarassment considering how the vaunted Sandinista turned out...

[killjoy]

The Clash's SANDINISTA... also, an embarassment considering how the vaunted Sandinista turned out...

Considering Sandinista was recorded almost completely ad-hoc in the studio as a massive jam session, it is pretty impressive.

[HHFi]

Don't hold the Sandinistas' politics against the Clash. A friend of mine was one of the major radio DJs playing New Wave music in the South (just about the only one in fact) in the late '70s-'80's, and he knew all those musicians and interviewed them many times. They would hang out at his house and go through his massive record collection, and that's how I got all my Clash, Ramones, Devo, etc. LPs autographed.

Anyway, he told me he once asked Strummer about the name "Sandinista," and Joe said it was just a word he'd heard in the news and thought it sounded really cool. He said he didn't even know what it was, he knew nothing about the politics of Nicaragua, and it literally could've meant anything. Only after it came out did all the leftist rock critics start assigning a lot of political meaning to it.

P.S. -- You should also hear Johnny Rotten laughing and ridiculing all the socialist rock critics who read so much into the Sex Pistols.