Bob Marley

The first strains of "Positive Vibration" have to give you chills. This is the sound of an artist entering his prime and stating his convictions, and for all the warm, bass-heavy atmosphere, there's something stark at work here. Marley's ancient voice sounds amazing, particularly on the chilling "Johnny Was."

Bob Marley has been writing moving songs, making vital and innovative music, struggling to
the top in the anarchic Jamaican record business and slowly building an international
following for almost ten years. Island Records has been trying to break him in the U.S. since
the release of Catch a Fire, four albums ago, and the rock press has been pushing the
albums, Marley and reggae music with a unanimous enthusiasm that makes even t... More >

If side one makes it seem that reggae has turned into the rasta word for boogie--even to a Trenchtown tragedy recited with all the toughness of an imprecation against litter--the unimpassioned sweetness of most of side two sounds like a function of reflective distance, assured in its hard-won calm. Some of it's even better. The Haile Selassie speech recreated here as "War" is stump statesmanship renewed by a believer, and if the screams that open the second side don't curdle the corpuscles of the baldheads who are being screamed at, then dread is gone from the world. (Grade - B+)