Peter Tosh's Legalize It. I owe my owning of it to some anti-prohibitionist views held much more strongly in my youth (and The Nice Price discount), but leave aside the first track and you've got eight tracks that are some fantastic reggae, and I've been listening to this a lot more over the past few years than I have anything from Tosh's more famous former bandmate. I think Tosh has more character depth in his voice (tad more "this guy's lived something and really believes these crazy ideas" than "this guy is a good singer"). While his singing is clear enough, but with enough Jamaican patois and nonstandard grammar to make unpacking his lyrics a challenging but not impossible puzzle. (Earlier this week I mentioned to E-6 how I enjoyed parsing Boomhauer's lines on "King of the Hill", this is similar.)
The tracks behind his vox are probably the highlight for me, kindof sounds like the pinnacle of the early 70's reggae sound (is that "Roots Reggae"?). After this point, Bob's records showed some London polish and subtle disco influences leak in. Tosh, too. And there was a rise in groups with a later sound like Black Uhuru, or the American-influenced songs on Darker Than Blue.
(I'm not a reggae historian, this is just the feel I get out of listening to these things now and piecing together a timeline.)
But the tracks on Legalize It really have none of that overt influence, and I'd be happy with just the instrumentals alone. There's a "Legacy Edition" reissue that has a whole disk with "Tosh's Original Jamaican Mix" or something that hits me as even better (thicker drums? grittier bass?). I've basically blind-tested myself, when I have my iPod on shuffle and a track from the album makes me say "Dang!", I look at which version it is, and it's invariably one of the older unreleased mixes.
Anyways, if you're looking for branching out on some reggae past Bob Marley, you've now got my recommendation.
Now leave your random ten.
