Rock Art & X-Ray Style

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 2, 1999)
• Original Release Date: November 2, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Hellcat Records
• ASIN: B00001X51J
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #46,844 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joe at his best, December 14, 1999

By 

Jeffrey S. Ryan "jryan777" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rock Art & X-Ray Style (Audio CD)

This is Joe singing, playing, and writing at the height of his considerable powers. Unlike Paul Simon and others who've delved into certain ethnic-musical stylings and come off like someone doing just that, Joe moves thru world-beat polyrhythms and folky sounds and straight R&R in a way that makes the sounds wholly his own, as if they've been absorbed thru his skin like, as he says, the rays of the morning sun. I saw Joe just a couple months ago and the new stuff, the stuff from this album, came off extremely well. The Mescaleros are a top-notch band, aiding and abetting Joe as he fought the law, lived by the river, and went straight to hell with as much grace and power as they do on the Xray material. Yalla Yalla was downright hypnotic, causing the entire packed club to bob and nod like one big neon-lit protoplasmic entity. Nitcomb is so pensively sweet and Willesden so purely evocative, I have to say that there are few others - Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, and of course Bob Dylan, come to mind - who can compete on Joe's level. The thing I like most about this album tho, is the way it grows on you. I played it and liked a couple things. Played it again and thought it was alright. Played it again and started smiling, and a week later my jaw was aching with the never-ending grin of near-musical orgasm. This is the best thing I've heard this year, and it would make the top 5 of almost any year I can recall. Joe's the man.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joe saw the world; made a timeless record, November 3, 2006

By 

77Jim (Philadelphia PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rock Art & X-Ray Style (Audio CD)

There is beautiful music on this disk. It is one of my favorite records, praise I would not hand out frivolously. Joe's music here is rich, textured, subtle, worldly, gentle, introspective... but it is also catchy, energetic and charged. Like the Clash catalog, this album is a progression forward with musical exploration. Clash records didn't always strike gold, but you can't accuse Joe of recording the same album twice. The music on X-Ray achieves power without over using the typical "punk" techniques of loud volume, machine-gun drums (sorry Topper) or excessive angst. It's like sitting down with an older wise man and letting his experience and insightfulness dazzle you gently without explosions or exaggeration to hold your attention. There is a toned muscular confidence on this album that keeps the listener there. The music is solid. There is no shortage of ideas or over used ones like the case with Sandinista. Each song has it's own clear identity. This is the 80's album Robert Plant wishes he could have made when he was pretentiously toiling in World music and coming up dull and duller.

Put this disk in the car stereo and go for a drive. By the time "Diggin' the New" and "Forbidden City" kick in, you will already be in a great state of mind.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "It's gonna take a nitcomb to get rid of me...", August 12, 2002

By 

Gena Chereck (Nebraska, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rock Art & X-Ray Style (Audio CD)

I bought this 1999 album about a year ago -- at the same time as Global A Go-Go -- and I'm still asking myself why I waited so long to get it. Apparently picking up where the Clash's Combat Rock (1982) left off, with its cohesive mix of world-beat ("Straight to Hell") and radio-friendly pop ("Rock the Casbah"), ex-Clash frontman Joe Strummer works similar magic on Rock Art And The X-Ray Style (only his second solo album since his 1989 debut Earthquake Weather). He expands his world-music horizons on "Sandpaper Blues" and "Yalla Yalla," rocks out on "Forbidden City," and has a nice punk-funk thing going on with "Techno D-Day" (about cops threatening to shut down a rave) and the surreal travelogue "Tony Adams." Plus, his trademark rasp sounds as great as ever.

I love his lyrics, too. In "The Road to Rock 'n' Roll" (my favorite track, featuring both a mournful pedal steel and a D.J.'s "scratching"), Joe waxes poetic: "On the road to rock 'n' roll, the lonely sing a soulful song, leave a little light in the wilderness for somebody to come upon." The folk-based "X-Ray Style" shows his thoughtful side, with lines like, "I'm counting the stars and the telegraph poles, and each one represents the hopes of a soul." In the lush, pretty "Willesden to Cricklewood," the middle-aged punk tells us, "How I would love to speak to everybody on the street / Just for once, to break the rules, I know it would be so cool."

Oddly enough, the two most generic-sounding tracks have the most remarkable lyrics. In the arena-rocker "Diggin' the New," Strummer shares with us some obvious but important advice: Better to live in the here and now ("Crashing head-on into the future, it won't even leave a dent / Just walk in like you own it, remember it ain't set in cement") than to keep dwelling on the past ("I got no time for the Luddites always lookin' back down the track, saying 'Can you spot one more detail, Jack?'"). The pop ballad "Nitcomb" is the most touching, as Joe truly sounds like a guy on the verge of a major professional and/or personal comeback: "It's gonna take a nitcomb to get rid of me, 'cause I just realized that it was meant to be / And I'm standing at a sale for the shoes of bankrupt men, and I just had to buy a pair to show that life can live again." If this album is any indication, Strummer is a mature punk who still has a lot left to say.