The 9 best Reggae tracks of all time
Reggae
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.
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Bob Marley & The Wailers / No Woman, No Cry
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.
The Abyssinians / Satta Massagana
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.
Jimmy Cliff / The Harder They Come
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.
Burning Spear / Marcus Garvey
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.
Desmond Dekker & The Aces / Israelites
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.
Junior Murvin / Police and Thieves
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.
The Mighty Diamonds / Right Time
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.
Culture / Two Sevens Clash
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.
Peter Tosh / Legalize It
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.