Album of the Day 10/25/10

Every day our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Monday’s album is #827:

Black Uhuru – Sinsemilla

For a brief period after Bob Marley’s untimely death, Black Uhuru was the biggest reggae band in the world. Touring with the Police (who they routinely blew off the stage, night after night on the Spirits in the Material World tour) didn’t hurt. It’s safe to say that everything they did with the original lineup (Mykal Rose, Puma Jones and Duckie Simpson on vocals, plus the incomparable rhythm section of Sly Dunbar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass) is worth owning, if you’re into this stuff. We picked this 1980 album over their debut and the pretty sensational Live 1981 album because the tracks here are more diverse and arguably stronger than the tunes on on the first album, and because the live one has an anti-choice song on it. It’s nice to see how well it’s aged, with the band’s biggest hit, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, along with the reliably smile-inducing title track, the anthemic Push Push, Fire, and Endurance, the genuinely anguished Happiness, and the bitter, confrontational Vampire. They also celebrate their roots (and, ultimately, everybody’s roots) with World Is Africa: at the time this came out, being socially aware was a necessity if you wanted to get anywhere in reggae music. The harmonies soar and the band pulse along without any help from computers or drum machines. Here’s a random torrent.

Album of the Day 9/19/10

Every day our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Sunday’s album is #863:

Peter Tosh – Live at the One Love Peace Concert

This is the famous 1978 concert where Bob Marley, in an effort to quell sectarian violence in Jamaica, forced Presidential candidates Michael Manley and his right-wing opponent Edward Seaga to shake hands onstage. Marley’s set that night was filmed, most of it included in the documentary Heartland Reggae. Tosh’s wasn’t, but the audio was recorded and issued thirteen years after his 1987 murder on the small Jad label. With the legendary rhythm section of Sly Dunbar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass, Tosh and his band deliver a long, psychedelic, absolutely incendiary set punctuated by long, foul-mouthed, stream-of-consciousness rants. “We don’t want peace, we want justice,” Tosh declared right at the start, blowing smoke from his giant spliff in the direction of the candidates. He kicks off the show with the Rasta benediction Igziabeher and then launches into one scathing number after another, starting with 400 Years, which memorializes the Middle Passage while reminding that de facto slavery is still very much alive in the third world. He opens Burial with a withering critique of globalization, follows that with Equal Rights and then a long, rambling demand for marijuana legalization that eventually leads into a ten-minute version of Legalize It and then his signature song (which Tosh actually co-wrote with Marley in the days when he was the Wailers’ bassist), Get Up, Stand Up. Tosh would be beaten within an inch of his life by thugs after the show as retaliation. No freedom of speech in Jamaica in those days. Pretty much everything Tosh ever recorded is worth owning; he may not have had his bandmate’s gift for pop melody, but his vision of liberation continues to inspire new generations around the world. Here’s a random torrent.