matedog wrote: ↑17 May 2021, 6:51pm
I've been listening to a makeshift Rat Patrol now and it is NOT an easy listen. As a mega fan, it's fascinating for me and I'm very much enjoying it, but I can't imagine what the feedback would have been if released as such. Just look at these track lengths:
Side One:
1. Straight to Hell - 6:52
2. Know Your Rights - 5:00
3. Rock the Casbah - 3:49
4. Red Angel Dragnet - 5:11
Side Two:
1. Should I Stay or Should I Go? - 3:06
2. Ghetto Defendant - 6:13
3. Sean Flynn - 7:22
Side Three:
1. Car Jamming - 3:53
2. The Fulham Connection II - 3:50
3. Atom Tan - 2:43
4. First Night Back in London - 5:11
Side Four:
1. Inoculated City - 4:43
2. Death Is a Star - 3:15
3. Cool Confusion - 3:12
4. Idle in Kangaroo Court W1 - 5:04
It is remarkably non-commercial save for Casbah and Should I Stay. I mean Jesus, who needs a 5 minute Know Your Rights or First Night? Beyond us of course. In the context of the tighter Combat Rock, their alleged sellout album (I guess GEER and LC were also supposed sellout albums depending on who you ask), the two big singles make some sense, but they are definite outliers on Rat Patrol. The other three minute songs are Cool Confusion, Death is a Star, and Atom Tan. Just weird shit. The Rat Patrol mixes are so dense too. Eventhough it's only a double, this one is so much more expansive or bloated (depending on which connotation you want to go with) than Sandinista yet still remarkably different.
Rat Patrol would have completely redone the album narratives. Instead of a tight single album with some experimentation and a couple big singles as a pull back from the over the top Sandinista, you'd have this long, vampy, very experimental album with all sorts of cool percussion/drumming, synthesizer experiments, continued genre experimentation. It makes for a fascinating alternate universe.