| See Also Big Audio, Big Audio Dynamite
When lead guitarist Mick Jones left the Clash in 1983, ex-bandmate Joe Strummer grumbled that Jones was no longer interested in punk-rock, or even in playing guitar. By all indications, Strummer was right; it was Jones who steered the Clash away from rock and toward a denser, more electronic sound on his last two albums with them. With Big Audio Dynamite, Jones was free to leave the Clash's punk and politics behind and shake booty to his heart's content. If nothing else, his post-Clash career proved far more watchable than Strummer's. Coincidentally, BAD's 1985 debut hit the stores around the same time as Cut The Crap, Strummer's dead-on-arrival debut with a reworked Clash. Jones was less interested in looking back: BAD's debut dived headfirst into the world of sequencers and samples, the hedonistic B-movie lyrics proved a major shock to fans of the Clash's political activism, and the effects and tapeloops provided by Don Letts had a stronger place in the mix than Jones' guitar. Yet the album's giddy good spirits and ultramodern dance beats packed a kick of their own, and Jones' old melodic sense was still in there between the lines. A reunion of sorts took place on the next album, No. 10 Upping Street , which featured Strummer as co-writer and producer--but tellingly, the album sounded totally un-Clashlike and the pair wouldn't work together again. The band remained a radio and MTV fixture for the next few years; their sound would shift from rock to dance and back again (surprisingly, Tighten Up, Volume '88--the follow-up to the album with Strummer--was the one that finally brought back some of the Clash sound). Likewise, Jones' mood would change from neo-hippie idealist (on Megatop Phoenix , made after a near-fatal hospitalization) to town cynic (on 1991's The Globe). In short, BAD had a good run; so its last album (F-Punk) being a musical and commercial dud is no major shame. |
