Overt sarcasm aside, this album falls into the cliched category of reggae albums that talk a lot about weed, have a distinctive/samey rhythm section in most songs, and insist that you move whenever you hear them. As you may have guessed, I'm, not a big reggae fan. This is partially demonstrated by/due to the fact that I've never heard a reggae album in its entirety, I've just heard singles and compilations. My concern was that reggae didn't offer much variety, and to be honest, this record demonstrates that pretty clearly. However, and there was always going to be a however at that point, that isn't the whole story.
When focused and listening to the album, it doesn't really do much for me. It's in no way offensive, but it doesn't exactly push boundaries. What I did discover was that when I was listening to it, but not fully concentrating on it, I enjoyed it a lot more. Ketchy Shuby is one of the catchiest things I've ever heard, but I also don't mind having it stuck in my head, which is pretty high praise. Allegedly the title is about cricket, but I think it is a none-too-subtle reference to something that doesn't last five days and involve tea breaks. Burial makes fantastic use of both horns and the classic upstroke on the rhythm guitar, and is just a great song to have blaring out of big speakers with a BBQ going on in the background (I couldn't confirm this due to our rubbish summer). Brand new second hand is a good song, but does suffer from the classic issue regarding reggae being a fairly sexist medium. Describing a woman in the manner it does is hugely problematic. My favourite song was Till your Well runs Dry, which shows that there can be some real variety in this genre. It is both touching, and simultaneously upbeat, and simply a great song that is not embarrassed by comparison to Marley's best work.
Peter Tosh was one of the key members of the Wailers, and had a successful solo career, the highlight of it being this album. Tosh was unfortunately killed in 1987 during an attempted robbery at his house. The three robbers tortured him, and as more guests arrived to welcome Tosh back to Jamaica, they furthered their attempts to get money out of him. Eventually growing frustrated, the leader of the gang, Dennis "Leppo" Lobban, shot Tosh in the head.
Overall I enjoyed this album more than I thought I would, but that was a pretty low bar. It certainly has a couple of tracks I can imagine revisiting in certain scenarios, although I don't think I'll often come back to the album as a whole.
Chloe's rating: 7
Chloe's favourite track: 8. Till your Well runs Dry
Olly's rating: 6
Olly's favourite rating: 8. Till your Well runs Dry
Next week's album is 606. Spy Vs Spy by John Zorn. The 1001 album's write up of this album made little to no sense, but it is Jazz, so maybe that figures.
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