(PS: I like to make fun of Rumors by going “Hey, let’s all get stoned and fuck each other and break up then make a record about it!” and that such an endeavor has no business being as sound as it turned out to be. All the Tumblr/slash fiction “shipping” aside, there isn’t really any evidence that the Clash fucked each other, but who knows, maybe it would have helped Sandanista.)
Tim Sommer writes:
Deep in the heart of every rock musician, from the most credible to the most commercial, there lies someone whining, “Je suis un artiste! If only the world knew what a deep, tortured soul I am, and how complicated my record collection is!” (…)
The standard line about Sandinista! is that there’s an album worth of good stuff here. Well, that’s not quite true. There may, indeed, be an album’s worth of good material, but barely an EP’s worth of good recordings.
“The Sound of Sinners” also could have been a helluva song, if it had been produced or mixed by someone who wasn’t really, really high; (…)
…they made the standard stoner mistake of not being able to distinguish between the sound effects and the music (…)
“Something About England” is a goddamn good song, but it sounds like it was mixed by someone who just drank a lot of Benadryl and Baileys (…)
And “Hitsville UK”, although drenched in the weed-friendly reverb haze that surrounds virtually all of Sandinista!’s non-mixes…
