Music Banter - Rock Art and the X-Ray Style by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

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Rock Art and the X-Ray Style by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

This is the album that won a recent FAIR album club poll, with a resounding landslide of three votes.

Quote:

Rock Art And The X-Ray Style by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros
( 1999 )

In a surprising change of style, JS put aside the punk fury of London Calling and made an excentric album of shuffling, urban reggae and folk-rock. He furthur expanded his own particular vision of the multi-cultural music scene on his next album, Global A Go Go, but song for song, I think Rock Art is stronger. Don`t dismiss these albums (as I did for years) as an exercise in musical tourism; they are much more consistent and convincing than that. And if you`re wondering if this is really FAIR music, well JS himself described this Yalla Yalla track as " an ancient British folk song - written in 1999" That`s a good enough excuse for me !

Has anyone listened to it ? Why not share your thoughts about this album ? Or any of Joe Strummer´s other work for that matter - seems like a good topic for one of those "compare and contrast" essays we all get so tired of at school.

So far I'm really enjoying it! :)

Interesting choice! I'll definitely give it a listen at some point. I've never even heard anything about Strummer's post-Clash work before now.

I have mixed feelings after my first listen. I think it might be a good album but it didn't really grab me...like...it was enjoyable, but I didn't get the feeling it was anything terribly special. It seems like a logical progression from the music Strummer was helping create in the late Clash albums. I love their Sandinista! album for the world music-tinged stuff I hear here, but here there just isn't as much interesting going on for me. I did enjoy the more energetic tracks so maybe that's what got me about the album as a whole...it lacked energy and didn't do enough for me to make up for it.

I'm interested in hearing more of his post-Clash work now, though. Maybe I'll give this album another listen at some point if I like his other stuff. Definitely glad I gave it a listen anyway, and I might just be missing out because I wasn't listening super closely!

Sounds like we´re traveling in opposite directions, Chives. The only Joe Strummer I know is the guy singing on these post-Clash albums. I´ve never heard any Clash albums, but I plan to check out Sandanista! on the basis of what you say.

Yes, on Rock Art there are perhaps too many relaxed, low-energy tracks, but I like the casual sound that he acheives by not obssessing on the sound or the lyrics; he makes it seem like he and bunch of pals have just breezed into the studio for a while before heading off to some super-cool party.

Of the post-Clash albums, you might like Streetcore, which has a few more powerfully-driven songs; this track seems to be the most popular :-

I love both The Clash and Joe's post-Clash work and The Mescaleros were a cool project! I remember listening to Streetcore for the first time - loved it. It was pretty different with Global A Go-Go. I was like "Jesus Christ, what is that?" but then listened to it a few times and now I think it's great! I haven't listened to X-Ray much yet (one time so far), but I think their music is something you have to somehow get used to. Well, I think X-Ray is the worst of the three albums, but still good. Sure better than Cut The Crap (which is crap...)