Big Audio Dynamite - Megatop Phoenix

Big Audio Dynamite
Megatop Phoenix
1989 Columbia/CBS records

Produced by Mick Jones and Bill Price

Like many groups from the 80s,I was first exposed to Big Audio Dynamite (B.A.D.) with their debut album and debut video, The Bottom Line, a ridiculously catchy dance-rock exercise. This was Mick Jones after the Clash and extending the concepts hinted at with their Combat Rock release. B.A.D. never was anywhere nearly as successful or relevant as the Clash, but over the course of their dozen or so years, they managed to make a few moments worth returning to.

As a rule, any album by the first incarnation (B.A.D.) is superior to B.A.D. II & Big Audio. This was the last of that stage.

The first post-intro cut from Megatop Phoenix, Rewind, is the anthem that makes this album, with its Jamaica toasting meets Brixton chorus:

Rewind Operator, Gonna Kill them with Sound
Bawling out Murder & Selector Come Down!

Now this is the late 80s, so acid house was rearing its head (as evident on the skittering drum machine beats of Contact and the light drum, synth and piano vamp that Baby, Don't Apologize is built around), and sampling was moving out of the novelty ghetto in pop music and taking a more studied presence. B.A.D. were all over it, with sampling used in layered backdrops at times, at others as goofy accents, often mixed with jangly guitars and dubbish bass, as it is used on Union Jack. Occasionally Mick gets his guitar out and actually solos, on the lazy-hazy mellow of Stalag 123, but mostly it is patched into a mix of electronics and synths and mixed instrumentation in a splatter pattern of dance-oriented rock.

The album has its weaker moments, but mostly due to the dated nature of some of the sounds (which if you enjoy the 80s can probably, like me, get over) as is the case with Dragon Town, House Arrest and Everybody Needs a Holiday. So be forewarned if that ain't yer cup o' tea.