Everything that can possibly go wrong with the purchase of a
greatest hits collection went wrong here. I don’t remember if I purchased this
or if it was a gift, but the sequence of thoughts probably went along these
lines, either in the mind of a gifter or in my own head. “Ben likes Ska, but he’s
never gotten into Bob Marley. He would probably appreciate a Bob Marley
Greatest Hits collection! Here’s one!” The album sat, unopened, in my
collection for years until a year or two ago when my wife Friday decided to rip
all my music to her computer. We listened to this and discovered it is more of
a conceptual tribute album, and was pretty terrible.
Its not that I don’t think any tribute albums can be good,
but it depends heavily on who you get. And since I hate most popular artists,
nine times out of ten I hate the artists recruited. More importantly, the
artists involved need to be into the project and put effort into creating a
good arrangement of the song they are covering, and for which they may not see
much financial reward. Instead, these projects are usually conceived by record
companies trying to milk a valued property on the cheap. Its another way to
repackage preexisting material. So bring in the hot new artists, give them a
day in the studio to cut a cover, and never speak of it again.
This album isn’t quite as bad as the stereotype, and upon a
few more listens there’s some interesting things going on here. For one thing,
the album was put together by Steven Marley, who is a dj and producer. The
tracks are actually not covers; they are remix mash-up... things. Marley
remixed his father’s songs, while hot new artists (circa 1999) contribute
rapped passages which are interspersed into the songs. To their credit these
passages actually relate to the song for the most part. Guru’s dedication to “my
man Biggie and my man Pac” during Johnny Was is kind of embarrassing, but for
the most part Marley and the artists come at this with a air of hero worship
that ensures the content of the music is appropriate and emotionally rich.
At the same time these passages make it painfully obvious
how much mainstream hip-hop has gotten away from its socially conscious roots. The
passages feel forced and unfamiliar. Busta Rhymes take on Rastaman Chant was
particularly uncomfortable. It’s like Marley and Rhymes were unfamiliar with
each other’s work. Marley stuck Rhymes, who is values for his adrenaline fueled
high speed rapping, on the slowest song on the album. At least he was able to
maintain his flow. Other rappers on the album stumbled over words. And Steven
Tyler is on here too.
A note about the liner notes. When you pull the booklet out it
feels thick and looks well designed. I thought “ok good I’ll get some
background on the project.” The book contains pages and pages of recording
information of the type that is interesting to no one, lots of pictures of
weed, one page describing the project, and then fouor pages of t-shirt ads.
While the layout and design are stylish and artistic, this self aggrandizement couched
in an artistic worship for the senior Marley and concealing obvious money grab
kind of characterizes the album as a whole. The sad part is that this isn’t
without promise. Maybe if the rappers
had been given more time to work on their lyrics this would have turned out
better, but I would really have liked the younger Marleys to get out of their dad’s
shadow and work on something new. All in all, not a painful album, some nice
hooks, but there is definitely better music out there more worth your time and
space on my shelf.
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