How ‘Sandinista!’ saw The Clash turn their back on punk: “Music’s gotta change”
It’s tough being the flagbearer of the scene. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel bad for anyone experiencing widespread critical success, but the pressure of upholding an entire scene comes with its pitfalls. Take The Clash, for example, sticking a lightning rod of influence through the music industry in the 1970s, to some audiences, they were beholden to the sound that made them big in the first place.
It’s a tale as old as time and one I have a mild understanding of. When an album as seminal as London Calling hits the shelves, it provides such an intensely unique sense of meaning to music fans caught in the cracks of disillusionment that simply playing it on repeat isn’t enough. And so the announcement of a follow-up album brings with it hope that a second instalment of sonic inspiration will come with it.
But where does that leave the artist? Creativity has never exactly flourished in the dark corners of expectation, and the very reason London Calling captured the zeitgeist was rooted purely in the fact that society wasn’t yet sure that’s what it needed. But the magnitude of its impact clouded any sense of open-minded judgement and as such, the band’s follow up was measured in reference to it.
Sandinista! was released just one year after their classic album, and Joe Strummer was acutely aware of the void that fans would suddenly feel subjected to. “I don’t think your average punk rock fan should bother to buy it, not if he wants sort of amphetamine rock,” he explained. “Maybe he should get the others, the new Subs or Rejects LP would be a better buy if he wants amphetamine rock. It’s music, y’know?… The music’s gotta change. I wish people would understand that more, and allow for it”.
Because the golden essence of songwriting isn’t wholly in the chord progressions, vocal melodies and rhythm profiles, especially in the case of The Clash, it was in the heart, in the way in which their music reacted to the very people with whom they shared local space with. And Strummer thought Sandinista! was no different.
“I live here. And I walk these streets, and I’m not gonna get pushed out of town,” he added. “I was thinking about going to live in Birmingham, or Australia, all these crazy ideas. But I thought, ‘Shit, I’ve always walked these streets, so why the fuck should I stop now?’ I’ve only wrote the best songs I could.”
But 1980 represented a seismic shift for not just The Clash but music as a whole. Culture was drifting through the tide of change, and the gritty pavement upon which the punk movement flourished was being reworked into something slicker altogether. Bands as culturally switched on as The Clash were in tune with the macro changes they found themselves in and made a record for themselves, not the fans.
What’s left? A record that with time has crystallised in sense. Hitting reset on your sonic blueprint doesn’t often make sense in the present day, and Sandinista! most likely didn’t, but by leaning into their own artistic temptations, they helped pave the way for a brave new future that arrived in the following decade.
