Happy 40th Anniversary to Big Audio Dynamite’s debut album This Is Big Audio Dynamite, originally released November 1, 1985.
In June 1983, Mick Jones was dismissed from The Clash and found himself without a musical home. His absence left a hole, not just in The Clash but in the whole British music scene. After all, he helped give The Clash their wild, unpredictable sound and all that sharp political bite, especially after London Calling (1979).
Pretty soon, Jones drifted over to General Public, the new project from Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger, who’d just seen their own band, The English Beat, disband. His stint with the group was brief, but during his tenure he played on their biggest hit, “Tenderness,” and contributed guitar to most of their debut album All The Rage (1984). He’s on the credits, though you won’t spot him in any band photos.
Jones’ departure was a chance to start fresh, and figure out who he was outside The Clash. The mid-1980s were a period of musical transformation, and its biggest artists were Michael Jackson, Prince and Bruce Springsteen. If you had any imagination, you could take your music just about anywhere. For Jones, this meant starting something entirely new: Big Audio Dynamite.
Their first album, This Is Big Audio Dynamite (1985), didn’t just mark a new chapter for Jones—it kicked open the door to something bolder and weirder. Instead of sticking to punk or rock, the band dove into a mash-up of sounds: rock, reggae, hip-hop, electronic music. Jones didn’t do it alone; he built B.A.D. with people like Don Letts, Dan Donovan, Leo Williams, and Greg Roberts, each one bringing their own flavor. The whole point was to break new ground and not sound like everyone else.
While The Clash had already begun to experiment with reggae and rap, B.A.D. pushed these elements further, integrating sampling, drum machines, and cinematic references. Jones once said, “I wanted to make music that was forward-thinking, that reflected what was going on in the world, and that could still make people move.” This goal is clear in This Is Big Audio Dynamite, which demonstrates Jones’ ability to change and his creative perseverance.
The album kicks off with “Medicine Show,” which doesn’t really sound like anything else from that era. It’s loud, funky, and full of samples from classic Spaghetti Westerns. The lyrics are packed with American pop culture nods, showing off the band’s obsession with the myths and media around them. “Medicine Show” exemplifies B.A.D.’s innovative use of sampling as both musical texture and narrative device, foreshadowing the sample-driven approaches that would come to dominate hip-hop and electronic music later in the decade.
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Next up, “Sony” keeps poking at modern life. Beneath the catchy and fast rhythm, Jones and Letts subtly jab at the music world’s commercialization and technology’s growing presence. That argument is still ongoing.
“E=MC²” is playful and smart, with lyrics that riff on the movies of Nicolas Roeg—Performance, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth. The samples come thick and fast: snippets of dialogue, weird sound effects, musical bits all jumbled together. With its irresistible rhythm, the song demands your attention, and it became a hit because of how well it combined diverse musical elements.
“The Bottom Line” marks a return to more straightforward rock and reggae influences, with a driving beat and infectious chorus. The song’s lyrics, which touch on themes of perseverance and resilience, show Jones’ own journey after leaving The Clash. The band gives every instrument room to breathe, and the result is clean, sharp, and direct—a mix of new tricks and old-school hooks.
“A Party” and “Sudden Impact!” showcase the band’s affinity for cinematic motifs and dynamic arrangements. The latter opens with a dramatic, almost filmic intro, before settling into a propulsive groove. The lyrics, which play with notions of conflict and transformation, mirror the musical shifts that occur throughout the track. As with “Medicine Show,” the use of samples and sound effects enhances the narrative quality of the song, blurring the boundaries between music and storytelling.
The song “Stone Thames” is built on a foundation of a hypnotic bassline and ethereal synth textures, which together generate a feeling of melancholy and nostalgia. “Bad,” the final track on the album, embodies the band’s core values of challenging norms and constantly evolving. The song’s driving rhythm, its infectious hooks, and the anthemic chorus provide a perfect ending to the album.
To fully appreciate This Is Big Audio Dynamite, it is instructive to situate it alongside other notable releases from 1985. The year was marked by the ascendancy of synth-pop (Tears for Fears’ Songs from the Big Chair), the consolidation of mainstream rock (Phil Collins’ No Jacket Required), and the continued evolution of post-punk and alternative music (New Order’s Low-Life). While these albums showcased the diversity of the decade, few engaged as directly with the future as B.A.D.
Unlike the meticulously polished productions of the day, This Is Big Audio Dynamite reshaped the act of creation itself. The album’s willingness to blur boundaries—between rock and reggae, analog and digital—sets it apart from other records. We didn’t know at the time that we were the last generation to straddle those two worlds.
SPIN Magazine’s Lenny Kaye put it best. “It’s not an easy album and rewards repeated listenings. The beat-box rhythms, the sing-along choruses, the special effects and voice-overs, the impressionistic lyrics whose scattered imagery creates its effect through cumulative force rather than narrative.”
Many folks did not know how to process this album when they heard it. They liked it, but weren’t sure why. B.A.D.’s debut album acted as a bridge, connecting the politically charged spirit of late-1970s punk with the growing pluralism of late-1980s alternative and dance music. Artists of the era tended to specialize in a particular genre or aesthetic, B.A.D. reveled in their “otherness.”
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