Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Blender | |
| Punknews.org | |
| Robert Christgau | A− |
| Rolling Stone | |
Sandinista! is a stylistic and topical potpourri that anticipates the "world music" trend of the late '80s and early '90s. Reggae, jazz, mock gospel, rockabilly, folk, dub, rhythm and blues, calypso, Clash-style rock and other musical genres appear on Sandinista! The album included two rap songs at a time when rap was new even among its core black audience.
John Piccarella, in a review headlined "The Clash Drop The Big One" and giving the album the highest possible rating of five stars, argues that in effect, the band said "to hell with Clash style, there's a world out there." Some critics have argued that the album would have worked better as a less-ambitious, smaller project, while Piccarella (in his Rolling Stone review) and others think of the album as a breakthrough that deserves comparison to the Beatles' White Album. Robert Christgau said "if this is their worst--which it is, I think--they must be, er, the world's greatest rock and roll band" and graded the album A-.
The triple album won several "best of the year" critics polls in 1981. It was voted the best album of the year in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll. Dave Marsh noted that it was a record whose topic was as many years ahead of its time as its sound. Alternative Press magazine included Sandinista! on its 2000 list of the "10 Essential Political-Revolution Albums" In 2003, the album was ranked number 404 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The CMJ New Music Report ranked Sandinista! number two on its 2004 list of the "Top 20 Most-Played Albums of 1981".
The Sandinista! Project, a tribute to the album featuring The Smithereens, Camper Van Beethoven, Jon Langford (Mekons) and Sally Timms, Amy Rigby, Katrina Leskanich (of Katrina and the Waves), Wreckless Eric, Willie Nile, Matthew Ryan, Stew, Sex Clark Five, Sid Griffin & Coal Porters, Haale, The Blizzard of 78 featuring Mikey Dread, Ruby on the Vine, and many others, was released on 15 May 2007, on the 00:02:59 Records (a label named after a lyric from the Sandinista! song "Hitsville U.K."). The album also features a collaboration by Soul Food and Mickey Gallagher on "Midnight Log".
Read more about this topic: Sandinista!
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“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
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