Random A-List for Set: Jamaica

Artists from Jamaica and reggae-identified artists worldwide.

Here are 12 A-list albums, selected at random from Set: Jamaica. Use your Reload button to get more.

Black Uhuru: The Best of Black Uhuru: 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection [2002, Island]
The finest reggae group of the '80s--maybe ever, behind the obvious, or until somebody with ears and all-label access does a Culture comp. In two decades solo, Michael Rose has never approached the spirit groove he hit regularly with Duckie Simpson, the great Puma Jones, and the greater Sly & Robbie, who in turn peaked with this band. Its best album was its last with Rose, 1984's Anthem, and its only previous comp, 1993's Liberation double, is mucked up with dubs and 12-inch mixes aimed at some combination of the ganja/dancehall markets. Only one such here, and only two Anthem tracks--just songs as songs, inextricable from S&R's thick, echoing rhythms, Jones's female principle, and Rose's exultation in his own powers. There's lots of exultation on this record. But even "Sponji Reggae" and "Happiness" proceed explicitly from suffering. A

Culture: Two Sevens Clash [1987, Shanachie]
Previously U.S.-available only as an import if at all, this even more than early Spear is the wellspring of the roots apocalypse that detonated the lion's share of great late reggae. Imagine a man from the hills sitting on a bus in Kingston and possessed by a vision: 1977, the year of the beast, the two sevens come down in all their numerological fury. No wonder every catchphrase sounds like God's word: this is where the Black Starliner and calling Rastafari became the moon-June-spoon of a music industry. The melodies are indelible, the rhythms early Drumbar, the ululations Winston Rodney gone all childlike and lyrical, at least seven tracks absolute classics. One of the ten best reggae albums ever made, says Shanachie's Randall Grass, but he has to watch his credibility. Bob Marley aside, it's the best, and I've been putting Bob Marley aside for it since 1977. A+

Dancehall Stylee: The Best of Reggae Dancehall Music Vol. 1 [1990, Profile]
As disco habitués learn to perceive its marginal distinctions, tolerate its generic repetitions, and crave its pulse, the style becomes less accessible to simple curiosity-seekers like yours truly. I'm sure every song on this assiduous compilation was a special favorite in context, and appreciate all the little touches--the late-breaking piano hook on "This Feeling Inside," the lilting Sunday School promise of "Prophecy," the multiple interjections of "Nah Go Switch," the aggressively incredulous "Wha-at"s of "Bun and Cheese" and then "Life," the squeaky echo of "Life." But even at that the closing "Watch a Them" and for that matter "Nah Go Switch" seem too damn marginal in their distinction. But excepting three or four--Tiger's "Ram Dance Hall" (he roars), Gregory Peck's "Oversized Mumpie" (blue patois), and Derrick Parker's "Cool It Off" (sounds like "coup d'etat"), with Shelly Thunder's "Kuff" a dark horse--I still could stand some more big touches. A-

Eek-A-Mouse: The Mouse and the Man [1983, Greensleeves]
Neither of this JA original's previous albums evinced much poetry, but the material here is as eccentric, matter-of-fact, and casually associative as his dub-minimalist music and calmly wacko vocal mannerisms. Beginning with an account of Hitler--"This is history and remember this ain't no joke"--and moving on to mix lesser horrors (death occurs in three of the remaining nine songs) with happier reflections, he comes across deeply compassionate, deeply bemused, and perhaps not as modest as you'd first think. Inspirational Verse: "Some of the them may call you a turkey/Some look on you and say you flaky." A-

Linton Kwesi Johnson: In Concert With the Dub Band [1985, Shanachie]
If Island's best-of was a superfluity, this live double is sweet excess, adding the beat, heat, and high spirits of reggae's most cosmopolitan backup to Johnson's calm, reasoned fury. No new material, but the five titles from back when the billing was Poet and the Roots might as well be. Even Making History, which is where Dennis Bovell started fancying up the horns, has gotten more extreme on tour. A-

Bob Marley & the Wailers: Live! [1976, Island]
The rushed tempos take their toll in aura: "Trenchtown Rock" can be far more precise, painful, and ecstatic; like most live albums this relies on obvious material. But the material is also choice, unlike most live albums it's graced by distinct sound and economical arrangements, and the tempos force both singer and the band into moments of wild, unexpected intensity. I used to think Natty Dread's "No Woman, No Cry" was definitive. A-

This Is Ska! [1997, Music Club]
Ska compilations are a puzzlement--once you get the ramshackle groove, the supply of likable stuff you'd never heard expands toward infinity as the roll call of undeniable classics remains as brief as ever. Island instigated the confusion with Intensified! and More Intensified! two decades ago, and finally solved it with the first volume of the four-CD reggae overview Tougher Than Tough. But this $10, 16-track, 44-minute alternative also strikes just the right mix of funky popsters (two Desmond Dekkers, one Jimmy Cliff) and loose-limbed groovemasters (their pace set by the Skatalites' "Guns of Navarone"). Prime MIAs: the unrepresented Prince Buster's "Al Capone" and Roland Alphonso's "Solomon Gundie," the latter available on Island's semiobscurantist new Ska's the Limit, which does unearth the archetypally out-of-tune sax solo of Lord Creator's "Independent Jamaica." Then there's Music Club's This Is Ska Too!, specializing (it says) in third-wave cover faves. Skank on. A

Toots and the Maytals: Time Tough: The Anthology [1996, Island]
This rocksteady diehard's 1968 "Do the Reggay" named a groove he was too constitutionally uptempo ever to get into; this unspoiled journeyman's soul affinities endeared him to hippie diehards and failed to touch young African Americans, who by the mid-'70s figured the soul that was passe when it came from the South must be pure shuck-and-jive if it came from the islands. So eager to please that only 1988's patently nostalgic Toots in Memphis ever showed the courage of his conceptions, he was also too songful ever to come up dry. I can think of things I miss, such as the heartily discomfiting "Famine." But this is the testament of Otis Redding's love child. His eagerness is a natural force. And his pleasures abide. A-

Peter Tosh: Scrolls of the Prophet: The Best of Peter Tosh [1999, Columbia/Legacy]
Tosh's prime was over long before he was murdered in 1987, probably for being the stoned, arrogant gadfly-cum-crank he turned into. By cherry-picking his 1976 and 1977 Columbia albums, culling two Rolling Stones keepers, adding three worthy oddments, and preserving EMI's 1981 "Fools Die" just in case anybody thinks I'm kidding about far downhill he slid, this showcases the Wailers' only born propagandist. You love Bob Marley, I love Bob Marley, but he didn't venture social statements as hard-hitting, verbally or musically, as "Equal Rights" or "Legalize It." Righteous militance rarely wears well. That Tosh could have done this much with it is worth writing down. A-

UB40: Present Arms [1981, DEP International]
They're not about to revolutionize JA--not by carpentering the bass lines, horn charts, and dub effects of the reggae of yesteryear (1975, say) into an indigenous pop r&b. And though they have their own DIY label, they're not about to revolutionize their native U.K. either. But their conscience is catching--I know, because I fell for "One in Ten" on Radio Luxembourg despite my objections to its merely liberal message. Their toasting is pretty infectious too. And they relegate the instrumentals to a bonus twelve-inch. Still, I doubt they'll break the DOR barrier here--what passes for mild protest in England these days might sound dangerous Stateside. It might even be dangerous. A-

Bunny Wailer: Hook, Line and Sinker [1982, Solomonic]
The skanking Memphisbeat Sly & Robbie rolled out for Joe Cocker goes uptempo and downriver here, and Bunny rides it for the entirety of a delightful groove album. Imagine what a reggae-goes-Stax-Volt-second-line tune called "Soul Rocking Party" might sound like. No no no--imagine it done well. Now you've got it. A-