Confronting the Clash's epic monstrosity Sandinista! is like being a teacher … and having one of your favorite little buggers show up one day and say, "Gee, Mr. Gosse, you know that story we were s'posed to hand in today?" "Yeah kid I know your dog ate it." "No sir, I did this instead." And he hands you a three-volume memoir, in crayon. Thanks a lot, you say, resisting the urge to dismember. Tell them it's fab fingerpainting and next week they want to redo [Pablo Picasso's] Guernica….

The limitations of this immense product (36 tracks, they're not all songs) are the limitations of [Joe Strummer] talent, and when Sandinista! hits full stride, which is quite often, it's usually because Joe has blundered up the right tree and found a niche that suits him, instead of a Jamaican crooner's soapbox or the pulpit of a sixth-form poetry mag.

Joe's getting...