Bob Marley.

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I rate all the cheese songs except turn your lights down low

Jamming is forever pleasantly associated for me with Chief Wiggum getting stoned
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Kaya

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Kaya 1978

Girls and Ganja are some of the finest things in life, so why is this album about them utter rubbish?

I've listened to it about 5 times now and I have very little to say about it I'm afraid. It's blandly mellow in ways which just irritate me. There is a baneful blues/rock influence which I hate.

The big tunes "Is This Love" and "Satisfy My Soul" are as meh as I remember them.

"Sun Is Shining" is just about OK here:


But this Lee Perry cut from 1971 is like going up 3 gears at once:


That lowkey skank and the harmonica slay, whereas the Kaya version is just warm and fuggy (in a bad way). I'd go as far to as to say that I'd prefer to listen to the dodgy garage remix from 1999 than the Kaya version again.

The rest of the album just seems like filler to me. If others disagree then speak up!

Back a yard in 1978:

Hugh Mundell - Africa Must Be Free by 1983
Gregory Isaacs - Cool Ruler
Gregory Isaacs - Mr Isaacs
Dennis Brown - Visions
Sugar Minott - Black Roots
Prince Alla - Heaven Is My Roof

Also East of the River Nile, African Dub Ch 3 and Return of the Super Ape.

Next up: Survival
 
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droid

Well-known member
Sun is shining was my first adolescent inkling that there was something up with Marley. Id heard the Perry version on a mix tape I was lent and it blew me away and when I sought it out later I could only find the Kaya version and was left wondering if I'd imagined the wickedness of the original.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Part of the hunt, that! Those early days when you dunno what you’re doing. Frustrating but good times. I always ended up with odd digital do-overs of tunes I was after.
 

droid

Well-known member
But also, so fucking difficult back in the day. Taping LP's from your best friend's big brother. Listening to radio religiously, desperate for hints. It was like groping in the dark back then. We didnt even have Peel.
 

droid

Well-known member
I bought a digital tuner in 1996 so I could get BBC and record Goldfinger shows onto minidisc. It was the only way i could hear dancehall.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Survival

survival.jpg

Survival (1979)

In JA "the dances were changing" and one criticism levelled against BMW by reggae nerds is that their music was completely detached from what was happening back a yard.

It's not as simple as that though. I mean, for starters most of these LPs are recorded at Tuff Gong, 56 Hope Road, Kingston. This one was mixed there as well.

Survival opens with two belters: "Wake Up And Live" & "Africa Unite". Quality tunes laid on a rock solid foundation of spongy bubbling bass etc which could be straight out of the Sly and Robbie playbook. The drums still have a way to go - clearly Island would have had no truck with fashionable syndrum "peeooow peeoow" biznis. But there is a tinge of early dancehall vibes here. Wake Up and Live is also presumably the lyrical inspiration for Tenor Saw's "Lots of Signs".

Side one also includes "One Drop" & "Ride Natty Ride" which have good lyrics but are a bit schmaltzy in comparison. (The former has a half decent dub version which isn't on the album.)

"Ambush In The Night" has a great chorus and must be one of the few tunes ever made about an actual attempted political assassination of the artist. It's impossible to disentangle the music from the man, really - I know I'm trying to be all objective about it but when they overlap like this you have to just sit down and shut up.

The same is true of the track "Zimbabwe". Other reggae artists had lyrically supported Rhodesia's struggle for independence but it was Bob Marley and the Wailers who performed their song at the independence celebration in 1980. (Apparently Survival's message of black struggle and African unity was censored in South Africa...)

"So Much Trouble In The World" is the big hit here I guess? I am fine with that - it's lovely and timeless - and also the only Bob Marley tune to feature on a mix I've done (with Paul Meme - Grimey Reggae - c/w the Mercston version).

The rest is... alright.

Overall - pretty great actually.

Back a yard in 1979:

Barrington Levy - Shaolin Temple / Bounty Hunter / Englishman
Freddie McGregor - Bobby Bobylon
Johnny Osbourne - Truth and Rights
Black Uhuru - Showcase
Sugar Minott - Showcase
Wailing Souls - Wild Suspense
Gregory Isaacs - Soon Forward

and much deejay business.

Next up: Uprising
 

luka

Well-known member
whats awful? sacrilegious? or you just dont like that tune? i thought she looked great btw
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Sacrilege in the House of the Lord.

Nah I meant the acoustic medley was awful.

Does make one ponder what the worst music related onesie would be though.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Uprising

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Uprising (1980)

Island must have loved Marley. Sure, he was cantankerous and a womaniser and demanded all kinds of bonkers cancer treatments that didn't work, but he delivered them at least one platinum selling album per year from 1973 to 1980.

"Coming In From The Cold" and "Bad Card" are both excellent and I am glad I have them in my life. Solid.

"Real Situation" is probably only worthy of comment because of the "total destruction the only solution" lyric. A nice phrase which is a good 'nuum signifier: referenced by Mad Cobra on a soundclash tape and then sampled by DJ Scud for his "Total Destruction" anthem on Maschinenbau. (Repress soon come).

"We And Dem", "Work", and "Zion Train" are just average.

"Pimpers Paradise" does that awful 70s rock thing where the lyrics are some middle aged man perving over a fallen woman with a thin veneer of social concern. It reminds me of something Rod Stewart would do in his later years. The I-Threes singing "Every Need Got An Ego To Feed" is great though and I like imagining that they are sending Bob daggers at the same time because they have had enough of his bullshit for one day.

Let's not fuck around though. There are actually only two tracks on the this album:

1. "Could You Be Loved" is possibly one of the most incredibly joyous tunes ever recorded - it's so good I think it actually stands outside of the Marley oeuvre in some weird space disco utopia that doubles up as the ultimate wedding party you're every going to go to. I mean, I'm sure your latest post-garage avant dance underground banger is great and all, but it's not as good as this, is it? The 12" is also excellent.

2. "Redemption Song" is exactly what is wrong with Marley in one song isn't it? THIS is where the irritating white dread with terrible tattoos gets the idea of busting out the acoustic guitar and fake patois. I mean, yes, there is that Saxon soundtape where Tippa does a riff on the "pirates rob I" line to tear into people ripping off lyrics and YES it probably is quite heart rending and inspiring the first time you hear it as an impressionable youth. But that was a long time ago. And I can't unhear the crimes committed against music in its name by buskers now.

I tell you what though - there's a "band" version of "Redemption Song" at the end of some CDs and it sounds EVEN WORSE, like an awful covers band doing their one reggae tune.

Overall - excellent if you can prune the hell out of it in a playlist.

Back a yard in 1980:

Barrington Levy - Robin Hood
Black Uhuru - Sinsemilla
Gregory Isaacs - Lonely Lover
Johnny Osborne - Fally Lover
Michael Prophet - Righteous Are The Conqueror

The first Scientist LPs...

Next up: Confrontation
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
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

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

droid

Well-known member
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

male pale and stale
Confrontation

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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!
 
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