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.

Big Youth: Progress [1980, Negusa Nagast]
To the sexy singsong, colorful patois, and spacy tracks of Jamaican toasting, Manley Buchanan adds something like unalloyed joy--he looks and often sounds like the happiest man on earth. It's not just ganja, either--if ganja could do that, Peter Tosh would be the happiest man on earth. Somehow Youth embodies everything most benign about Rastafarianism--even when he's berating Babylon, which is often, he's unsectarian about it, suffused with humanitarian compassion for all victims of wickedness, Babylonians included. His most songful album is full of suffering and violence, yet its fundamental mood is one of gentle transport, the spiritual certainty of the born prophet. And for a sample of heaven ganja-style, it closes off with two sweet dubs. A−

Burning Spear: Creation Rebel: The Original Classic Recordings From Studio One [2004, Heartbeat]
Before he started wailing to wake up the dead, Winston Rodney tried to find a place within the harmony trio format imposed by Studio One's Clement Dodd. This is the record of that struggle--not always as songful as Dodd (or we) might prefer, but whenever you tune in, somebody will do something that makes you ooh inside of a minute. "Door Peeper"? "This Population"? "Weeping and Wailing" (natch)? "Creation Rebel" itself? Those are songs. The "hip hip hooray" of "What a Happy Day"? Saddest ever recorded. A−

Calling Rastafari [1982, Nighthawk]
Produced in three days by a Jewish wheeler-dealer from St. Louis, this fundamentalist compilation--roots reggae as a music of militant religious homily--has an irresistible integrity. Its simple determination matches its singsong melodies and solid rhythms, and the singing is crucial: Culture's Joseph Hill hasn't sounded so impassioned since Two Sevens Clash, the Gladiators' Albert Griffiths outgroans Marley on "Small Axe," and the Itals' Keith Porter does "Herbs Pirate" so nice you'll settle for owning it twice. A−

Club Ska '67 [1980, Mango]
Intensified Vol. 3 is a little later, hence a little slicker. Like some would-be early reggae sampler, side two begins with four full-fledged songs in a row; the early reggae standard "Shanty Town" blocks side one's all-instrumental flow. But if you've developed a weakness for the style's random inspiration, you won't say no to one more hodgepodge of found masterstrokes and delightful accidents. Strange to think this was all happening simultaneously with Sgt. Pepper. A−

Desmond Dekker: Rockin' Steady: The Best of Desmond Dekker [1992, Rhino]
For those who find ska compilations forbiddingly random, Dekker's crude pop sense and eerie, offhand falsetto provide a focus and a way in. There'll never be another "Israelites." But if the titles "Shanty Town" and "Intensified" mean anything to you, which they should, take a chance on "Mother Long Tongue" and "Fu Manchu." A−

Joe Higgs: Triumph [1985, Alligator]
The ska pioneer and fourth Wailer is one of reggae's most respected writers of songs and singers of harmonies. He's been around too long to have much use for millenarian cant, and he's too honest to play the romantic stud--he sings about love because he needs it soul and body in the ghetto where he figures to spend the rest of his days, and at forty-five he feels like he's got a lot of days ahead of him. His weathered voice and reassuringly deep and unpredictable backup also articulate the way he understands the world. I know of no Jamaican whose sensibility is more accessible to ordinary American music lovers of a certain age. A−

Linton Kwesi Johnson: Live in Paris With the Dennis Bovell Dub Band [2005, Wrasse]
Though he's only released two albums since his last live one, 20 years ago now, LKJ retains the calm confidence with which savvy ideologues generate authority--so much more convincing in the long run than fervent rhetoric. With leftists everywhere twisting in anxiety or flailing out in defensive contempt, his voice alone is a comfort; announcing "a couple of old anti-fascist numbers" or matter-of-factly explaining the economic program that will bring everyone the precious gift of "more time," he sounds so intelligent, decent, and uncompromised that you feel political struggle can be a sane and rewarding life choice. His voice quieter but undiminished, his band subtler but no less tricky or effective, he unblushingly repeats five songs from the 1985 set, and although I wish he'd tapped Tings an' Times more--"Sense Outa Nansense," certainly--I sure didn't mind hearing the early material again. A−

Steel Pulse: Tribute to the Martyrs [1979, Mango]
I can't tell whether the relatively clearheaded politics of these English Jamaicans detract from their ejaculatory, off-center music or make it sound more avant-garde than it is. Both, probably. If their Steve Biko song isn't as affecting as Tom Paxton's, their George Jackson song beats Dylan's, and I can't imagine anyone else, not even Tom Robinson, making a hook out of "rock against racism." One of their secrets, as you might have guessed, is a terrific beat. Another is forthright singing of a sort that--and now I'm guessing--can only grow out of unshakable conviction. A−

UB40: Geffery Morgan [1984, A&M]
Seemed dull even for reggae first time through, and even for the soulfully monochromatic Ali Campbell well after that. I persevered only because an Afrosax instrumental kept taking me by surprise. Then the lilting "Seasons" won my heart. And then--presto!, or at least lento . . . --I was focusing in on almost every cut, and admiring the jumpy depth of the production throughout. Could be their strongest ever, I swear. Still there's reason to worry about how long the first impression will last. A−

UB40: 1980-83 [1983, A&M]
Only Bunny Wailer's inventions have anything on the deep consistency of this integrated English world-class reggae. And if Ali Campbell's sufferating vocal leads are tamer than the outcries of such rootsmen as Winston Rodney and Keith Porter, they certainly don't lack for soul or expressive reach, except perhaps on the upful side, where the fast-talking Astro comes to the rescue before any serious tedium is done. Repeating only three tunes from their U.K. best-of, eschewing long-winded dub, this overdue U.S.-debut compilation is where to get hooked. A−

The Wailers: Burnin' [1974, Island]
This is as perplexing as it is jubilant--sometimes gripping, sometimes slippery. It's reggae, obviously, but it's not mainstream reggae, certainly not rock or soul, maybe some kind of futuristic slow funk, War without the pseudo-jazz. What's inescapable is Bob Marley's ferocious gift for melodic propaganda. It's one thing to come up with four consecutive title hooks, another to make the titles "Get Up Stand Up," "Hallelujah Time," "I Shot the Sheriff," "Burnin' and Lootin'." A