Bob Marley.

[Corpsey]

Could You Be Loved is 5 stars

I'd pick that or Waiting in Vain as my favourite Marley choon

Honourable mention to Trenchtown Rock

And many others waiting in the wings

[Corpsey]

This thread confirms that white blokes with accoustic guitars destroyed Marley's legacy for white blokes without accoustic guitars

[john eden]

This thread confirms that white blokes with accoustic guitars destroyed Marley's legacy for white blokes without accoustic guitars

Heh!

[droid]

Could You Be Loved is 5 stars

I'd pick that or Waiting in Vain as my favourite Marley choon

Honourable mention to Trenchtown Rock

And many others waiting in the wings

Trenchtown rock! Perhaps the greatest opening lyric in all of music.

[john eden]

R-1448369-1512626153-2202.jpeg.jpg

Confrontation (1983)

The posthumous album. A quick read of the wiki page suggests that a fair bit of work had to be done on this without Bob to finish it off.

Clearly the "confrontation" in mind is something weighter than a dubwise battle at a soundclash. The front cover is some weird Revelations-level stuff and apparently the inside cover depicts a military battle between Ethiopia and Italy in 1896.

"Chant Down Babylon" is okaaaaaay. It does weirdly sound like a rock band doing reggae though? Not quite sure why that is because I am rubbish at musicological analysis.

"Buffalo Soldier" is the single and I actually remember this coming out and being on Top of The Pops with a moody black and white montage video. It's not great, really. A lot of the album works reasonably well as jaunty stadium rock reggae. If you were hitching back in the day and someone put this on you'd be quite happy compared to some of the other nonsense you might have to pretend to enjoy.

"Mix Up Mix Up" is terrible - cheesy dated synth sounds and Bob's voice sounds all strangulated.

"Rastaman Live Up!" jogs along in an appealing way - but nothing much happens.

Not a great way to finish, but hey.

Back a yard in 1983:

Yellowman ‎– Zungguzungguguzungguzeng
John Holt - Police In Helicopter
Johnny Osbourne ‎– Water Pumping

Dancehall in full swing. If you look at the Dub Vendor charts for 1983 there are a bunch of live dancehall session LPs in there:
https://tapirs.home.xs4all.nl/1983.htm (and Dub LPs by Scientist, Mad Professor...)

Also some serious non-Bob commercial reggae on Island:

Black Uhuru - Anthem
Gregory Isaacs - Out Deh! ("Night Nurse" has been released in 1982)

On A&M:

Dennis Brown ‎– The Prophet Rides Again (largely terrible iirc?)
UB40 - Labour of Love

I think in the UK at least there is an argument that UB40 became the one reggae act a lot of people liked after that...

Next up: a quick summing up!

[Benny B]

Thoroughly enjoyed these round ups, John, but no Live! ? That was my intro to bob and reggae and I reckon it still sounds great, so vibey.

[john eden]

Thoroughly enjoyed these round ups, John, but no Live! ? That was my intro to bob and reggae and I reckon it still sounds great, so vibey.

Thanks! I just wanted to get through all the studio albums first, but I think you are right about "Live!" - some of the Live tracks are the definitive ones for people.

Probably "Babylon By Bus" should be squeezed in somehow too.

[Matthew]

Thanks! I just wanted to get through all the studio albums first, but I think you are right about "Live!" - some of the Live tracks are the definitive ones for people.

Probably "Babylon By Bus" should be squeezed in somehow too.

thanks john. really enjoyed this. can you make a spotify playlist of your faves?

[luka]

https://twitter.com/bobmarley/status...s&tw_p=archive

[droid]

Was at a dance last night and one of the selectors snuck in 'So much trouble' - version first, and it sounded great.

It's easy to forget what these tunes are supposed to sound like. Completely different animal with sound system bass.