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King Tubby Meets Rockers UptownAugustus Pablo

Independently chosen for5 of our lists. Here is what each of them said.

Released
1976
Label
Yard Music
On
Dub, 1976, Roots, The Waxonia Desk — Ghosts, and The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Updated
2026-08-29
Search Spotify (platform search — exact link pending) (opens in a new tab)YouTube Music (opens in a new tab)

Analysis

3 sections, no single moment the energy jumps to.

Tempo
64.6 BPM
the pulse reads at half this too — counted the way the genre counts it
Key
C minor
estimated from the pitch content
Dynamic range
4.6 dB
compressed hard — very little between the quiet and the loud
Length
2:33
measured from the YouTube master

The record, end to end

energy
drums
bass
vocals
other
  1. 0:00Apeak0
  2. 0:14Bsteadybar 7
  3. 2:10Coutrobar 70

0:00 · A · peak

sits at the top of this record's range · instrumental

Lasts
0:14
Energy
100
Brightness
0
Density
19
  • drums
  • bass
  • vocals
  • other

Brightness and density are scored against this record's own sections, not against music in general — they say how its parts differ from each other, and nothing about how it compares to anything else.

Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names.

drums
the drum kit, separated from the mix
bass
the bass part, separated from the mix
vocals
the voice, separated from the mix
other
everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings
peak
sits at the top of this record's range
steady
holding a level — the groove, neither rising nor falling
outro
the closing fall
Every moment against every other. Squares on the diagonal are sections; a bright patch off it is the record recognising itself — the second chorus meeting the first.

Measured from the YouTube master on . Section labels describe how the energy of the recording moves, not its musical form — a machine can see loudness climb and jump, it cannot hear a chorus arrive. Anything we were not confident enough to state is left out rather than shown with a caveat.

  1. Ranked No. 1 in Dub

    The record everyone means by dub. Pablo's melodica floats over a Jacob Miller rhythm that King Tubby keeps dismantling and rebuilding, and the space between the parts carries more weight than the parts do.

  2. Picked by 1976

    The most-cited dub record ever made, and it is a melodica line and a mixing desk. Kingston in 1976 was inventing the studio-as-instrument while London was still arguing about guitars.

  3. Picked by Roots

    The mixing desk becomes an instrument. Every record on this site built from the bass upward, with the vocal free to vanish for a bar, is working from the grammar King Tubby set here.

  4. Picked by The Waxonia Desk — Ghosts

    The starting point for the argument every record below repeats: a mix is a composition. The debt the others owe is as much to the economics that made a B-side worth rebuilding as to the technique itself.

  5. Picked by The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred

    The record that proves an engineer is a composer. Everything on this list built from the bass upward is quoting it, usually without knowing.