Reggae
The 9 Best Reggae
Tracks of All Time
Ska slowed twice over, until the emphasis landed on the third beat and the bass became the lead voice. Jamaica's national music from 1968, and the direct ancestor of everything this site publishes about low frequencies.
- Origin
- Kingston, Jamaica, 1968
- Tempo
- 60–90 BPM
- Also known as
- roots reggae, rocksteady, one drop, jamaican
- Tracks
- 9
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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Number 1: Bob Marley & The Wailers / No Woman, No Cry
1975 · Island
The live version, because the studio take is merely very good. Seven minutes in which a man consoles a room by describing a yard in Trenchtown, and the organ line does half the consoling.
Number 2: The Abyssinians / Satta Massagana
1969
A minor-key hymn in Amharic that no producer wanted, shelved for two years and then released by the group themselves. It became the most versioned rhythm in Jamaican music.
Number 3: Jimmy Cliff / The Harder They Come
1972 · Island
The song that carried the film that carried reggae out of Jamaica. Defiant without being aggressive, which is a harder register than it sounds and one Cliff owned completely.
Number 4: Burning Spear / Marcus Garvey
1975 · Island
Winston Rodney sings history lessons over a rhythm that barely moves and makes them feel like prophecy. The most severe great record in this tradition.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Number 5: Desmond Dekker & The Aces / Israelites
1968 · Pyramid
A number one in Britain that most of Britain could not make out a word of. Cheerful music about being broke before dawn, and the first reggae record to travel on its own terms.
Number 6: Junior Murvin / Police and Thieves
1976 · Island
Murvin's falsetto over a Lee Perry production of extraordinary lightness. The Clash covered it a year later and the traffic between punk and Kingston was open for good.
Also on 1976, Dancing to Bad News
Number 7: The Mighty Diamonds / Right Time
1976 · Channel One
Channel One's rockers rhythm — the drum doubled up and pushed forward — arriving fully formed. Three-part harmony over a beat that changed what Jamaican records sounded like for the rest of the decade.
Number 8: Culture / Two Sevens Clash
1977 · Joe Gibbs
An apocalypse prediction so widely believed that parts of Kingston stayed home on the day. Few records have ever been taken this literally by their own audience.
Number 9: Peter Tosh / Legalize It
1976 · Virgin
Tosh states his case with none of Marley's diplomacy and a much harder band behind him. The Wailers' sharpest edge, heard clearly once he was on his own.