Published on Dec 3, 2000
I have mixed feelings about
Rastaman Vibration, the 1976 release from Bob Marley &
The Wailers. On one hand, I don’t often find myself drawn to the
Pierce Memorial Archives to listen to this one, simply because it
doesn’t scream “greatest hits” from its track listing. (It could
also be that I’m hesitant to listen to “War,” thanks to what Sinead
O’Connor turned that track into during her appearance on Saturday
Night Live all those years ago.
Yet when I did finally dig my old cassette out from the Archives
and popped it into the tape deck, I found myself pleasantly
surprised by this album. In a sense, it doesn’t need to have any of
the hits on it, for the music in general holds its own quite well.
Yet it also suggests that Marley and crew were reaching a comfort
level that threatened to be harmful to the music.
For the most part, Marley’s style of reggae dared to be more
than one or two chord progressions; this allowed him to grow as a
songwriter and help to become reggae’s best-known spokesperson. (I
realize the track “Exodus,” one of Marley’s biggest hits, is
constant riffing of an A-minor chord… but that’s a different
album which we’ve already talked about on this site.) On
Rastaman Vibration, there’s a lot of settling in to simple
chord patterns which don’t vary at all – and that suggested
stagnation on the part of Marley and all the other song
writers.
Even so, tracks such as “Positive Vibration,” “Roots, Rock,
Reggae” and “Who The Cap Fit” shine on this album – and even though
none of them were featured on the best-of package
Legend, these songs all show they had the power to be
remembered on their own terms.
Yet some of the tracks you’d expect to be the ones that leap off
the album into your heart are the ones which are the most
troubling. “War” is one of the tracks which sticks to a simple
chord progression, and though Marley’s rendition blows all others
out of the water, it still is weak in comparison to the outstanding
tracks on this disc. Likewise, “Crazy Baldhead” has its moments,
but its overall power is compromised by a bizarre war-like whoop
that Marley lets loose with at the start.
What’s a little more disturbing is that other tracks, which
probably would have been standouts in their own right had they been
on a different disc, are lost in the shuffle. “Night Shift” and
“Rat Race” both come to mind as examples.
Rastaman Vibration is by no means the nightmare I once
thought it to be, but it also is not the best of Marley’s catalog.
That said, it is worth checking out for the hidden gems, and is
still recommended.