Oh. Yeah. Right. Sorry. provides a list of his musical tastes over the last fifteen years, which started me thinking how little mine have changed over that period. Admittedly they have expanded, mainly because I have more money and more access, thanks to goegraphical location and the internet, to music in its myriad forms.
It must have been about 15 years ago that I bought the Clash’s Sandinista on double cassette in some god-forsaken second-hand music shop in Portsmouth. I have recently re-purchased this album again, on CD this time, with a reproduction of the original liner notes, and, I have to say, it is enjoyable as it was back then. Not in a life-changing way, nor an overly nostalgic return to my youth.
At the time of release, Mick Jones described it as an album you dance to all the way through, you just have to dance in a certain way. It certainly is dance music, and far more forward-thinking than critics at the time could cope with. It covers reggae, British folk, Motown, steel drums, jazz, world music (dreadful term, I know) and prototypical rap, all with dub versions, electronic overdubs and samples (of sorts). Not all of it is listenable, and several of the tracks are indulgent to say the least, yet they seems to have presaged most of the major developments in British music over the following twenty years.
And the more I think about it, the more this musical cosmopolitanism (although some may claim it as imperialist exploitation) appeals to me. Most forms of popular music (and several forms of non-popular music) derive from the blues originally, and there has been cross-fertilization between the different forms throughout the last century – the album may be a journey, and at times far from easy-listening, but it does make sense.
This has also influenced my DJing (along with others, including David Mancuso) – and you can definitely hear it (I hope) in the CDs I send out. The latest travels from mystical jazz through hiphop, Brazilian, disco, soul, funk, dub, reggae and latin. The trick is, I think, to find those track that cross the boundaries between the genres, be they cover versions, remixes, or simply unusual tracks. I hope you like it.
