Before he was gunned down during a home invasion in 1987, Peter Tosh was one of reggae's most militant performers – a civil rights agitator who co-wrote "Get Up, Stand Up" as a member of the Wailers. That rep has given his music a harsher cast than it deserves; Tosh could be cool-headed as well as hot-tempered, as on the diplomatic "I Am That I Am": "I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations/Neither are you here to live up to mine." The song is a highlight of Tosh's best album, 1977's Equal Rights. Tosh is plenty fiery: Over deliciously spongy roots grooves, he states his politics both personal ("Stepping Razor," a snarling quasi-answer to Randy Newman's "Short People") and political (the unblinking title cut and "Apartheid"); the bonus material includes equally biting rejects like "Babylon Queendom." (The other newly deluxe Tosh LP, 1976's Legalize It, has an even more apt bonus track: a PSA for a weed-legalization organization.) Tosh was never as dangerous as he was on Equal Rights – or as completely approachable.

Listen to "Get Up Stand Up":

Related: Photos: Bob Marley and Beyond: Reggae in the Seventies and Early Eighties

“Time to Pretend”

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”