Various Artists: Punky Reggae Party : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Trojan was the original cool ruler of British reggae labels. In 1967, founders Chris Blackwell and Lee Gopthal began to license the then-exotic dance tunes from visionary Jamaican producers Duke Reid and Coxsone Dodd. Eventually, all of the island's key producers came on board, notably Lee "Scratch" Perry during his close collaboration with Bob Marley and the Wailers. The label went on to introduce Jamaican music to a generation of white British fans, helping to set the foundation for punk rock's embrace of reggae in the Seventies and Eighties. Now a reissue label, Trojan has switched to theme collections that offer lesser-known material in two-CD sets and budget-priced CD boxes. Bob Marley and Friends gathers sides by teachers, producers and performing colleagues of Marley's (whose one highlight is "Shocks of Mighty" with Perry) in a delightful sequence of soul reggae. Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt, who would become Marley's backup singers, steal the set as they sizzle through songs such as "Put a Little Love in Your Heart."

Reggae mastered smut long before it did politics, though it was inconvenient for righteous fans in the Seventies to talk about it. Max Romeo's "Wet Dream" was even a U.K. hit (ignoring his explanation that it was really about trying to fix a leaky roof). Rendered tame by hip-hop and dancehall "slackness," the snickering and sighing on X-Rated Box Set has the charm of photos from Victorian bordellos.

In reggae, Lee Perry stands at the intersection of soul, porno and protest. They, along with his pulp-movie obsessions and tough grooves, get generous display on the Upsetter Box Set, which concentrates on his Black Ark Studio years and which would count for more if there were not already too many Perry collections available.

English punks revived Trojan's fading fortunes in the late Seventies, and the most corrosive and joyous of the punks' favorites come together on Punky Reggae Party. Social upheaval seethes through songs both celebrated -- "(Under) Heavy Manners" -- and unjustly obscure -- "Sons of Slaves." A number of sides include long dub interludes: If you want to follow the songs even deeper into trance mode, get the parallel dub collection, Flashing Echo. Not every one of the label's sets is a winner -- avoid the unnecessary Tribute to Bob Marley -- but the Trojan vaults deliver a wider view of reggae than any other studio.

MILO MILES
(From RS 916 – February 20, 2003)