Big Audio Dynamite 1: This Is Big Audio Dynamite

Five years seems to be the standard shelf life for a lot of bands, and just like the Jam, who’d emerged at around the same time, the Clash as we knew them didn’t last past 1982. Mick Jones wanted to get more into hip-hop, and Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon didn’t, so they bounced him. After a short stint with General Public—an offshoot of the similarly splintered (English) Beat—Mick recruited a new rhythm section, though the drums were primarily electronic, a keyboard player, and filmmaker buddy Don Letts (as seen on the cover of Black Market Clash) to provide vocals and sound effects via the then-burgeoning practice known as sampling. The new combo was dubbed Big Audio Dynamite, occasionally called Bad; This Is Big Audio Dynamite was their rather blatant statement of purpose.

The opening “Medicine Show” sets the pace, toe-tapping and melodic with intertwined guitar parts fighting for space between the samples from spaghetti westerns. (Joe and Paul appeared in the song’s rather ridiculous video, so any hard feelings must have disappeared by then.) “Sony” isn’t as successful, mostly bringing to mind the anarchic beatbox experiments on Sandinista!, but it doesn’t matter once “E=MC2” kicks in. Now we can hear it as a rock-rap hybrid ahead of what Run-DMC did with “Walk This Way”, but back then it was an infectious litany of pop culture imagery delivered a la Chris Difford in Squeeze’s “Cool For Cats”. The samples from Performance show Mick Jones stretching his Keith Richards fixation all the way to Mick Jagger. “The Bottom Line” is another perfectly simple track, with just a few riffs around the same root note and a singable chorus. That said, “I’m gonna take you to part two” is more effective ending an album or cassette side than in the middle of a CD.

Frankly, part two isn’t as exciting, and mostly slower in tempo, but still works. Considering the time, it’s easy to assume that “A Party” refers to apartheid, though the lyrics aren’t overt. Don Letts’ Jamaican-tinged are most audible here, toasting near the end. “Sudden Impact!” is directly descended from “The Magnificent Seven” and “Radio Clash”, and maybe Blondie’s “Rapture”, but without as much percolating bass. “Stone Thames” is loaded with cartoony sound effects, and once you realize the title can be stretched to refer to Rock Hudson, the references to a certain disease related to sex start to make more sense. “Bad” is almost as noisy, and gives equal time to Letts in the verses.

The gauntlet was definitely thrown. While it’s definitely a leap from the Clash, what sells the album is Mick’s familiar vocal approach, used so well in his old band’s poppier moments. Many of the lyrics are delivered at rap speed, with the addition of self-harmonies, which makes it all more musical. He was certainly trying to do something different, as evidenced by the even dancier remixes—some even more tuneful than the album mixes—that make up most of the bonus disc in the expanded edition, released 25 years later. (The balance includes the underwhelming outtake “Electric Vandal” and two contemporary B-sides.)

Big Audio Dynamite This Is Big Audio Dynamite (1985)—3
2010 Legacy Edition: same as 1985, plus 12 extra tracks