Reggae is a music style that I have always had some fondness for having been introduced to it as a wide-eyed 15 year old by a record shop owner.
While Bob Marley was hitting the top 40 with ‘’Jammin’, Steel Pulse, a Birmingham based band had just released their debut album, Handsworth Revolution.
I did buy the album but it never really struck a serious chord, and besides the successive singles of King Bob, ‘Is the Love’ and ‘Satisfy my Soul’, it became purely a passive interest.
Unknown to me there were many other Reggae songs that I had previously picked up on without directly linking them to the style itself.
For example, 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday should be a complete giveaway with the title of the song. The beat and harmony are distinctively Reggae but because I was a huge fan of the band and loved their distinct style it didn't immediately correlate.
Their previous music was anything but, and sadly this would be the last great single from one of the most alternative, innovative bands of the '70s.
By the turn of the decade bands such as Madness, The Beat and The Specials were delivering their own flavours of ‘Ska' upon the record-buying public.
The difference between ska and reggae is subtle and nuanced, mostly involving tempo and rhythm: Reggae is slower and more laid-back, while ska is a bit punchier. Indeed, reggae evolved from ska, and the story of how both of these musical styles originated in Jamaica is quite interesting.
The Specials’, ‘Ghost Town’ became a big hit and there is no doubt the undertones of the rhythm are Ska, yet at the time, just like the 10cc song I didn’t notice.
…’Reggae is not just Bob Marley, it’s more integrated into our music than you might think’…
During this time period, we start hearing another British band, with a vocalist who sounds like he's from Jamaica. Ali Campbell was in fact, very white and from Birmingham.
Of course, I'm talking about UB40, who took their name from the Unemployment Benefit form name at the time. Their music spoke volumes about the depressing state of the UK in 1980, and the band rose to become very popular and successful.
Listen to the lyrics and feel that very Reggae style harmony and beat. I enjoyed their early songs before they got too popular.
So let’s get back to the title of what I’m trying to convey. I hear reggae in many songs but if it’s not pointed out then it can easily bypass you.
In 1982, Blondie released one of their last hits of any consequence. I remember it well but didn’t think ‘Reggae’ at the time. Rap was to be next with the song, ‘Rapture’.
It would be many years before Blondie had the success they enjoyed during the early eighties, but they were clearly not afraid to experiment and move from that ‘pop’ genre they had been labelled.
Let us move years later, as some reading this may not have been born when these songs were first released.
Scottish Rockers Biffy Clyro were a band I loved for the first THREE albums. When first listening to ‘My Recovery Injection’, I thought of Reggae.
It doesn’t last and after 30 seconds or so the song changes quite dramatically as was their style in the early days.
Can you hear that Reggae beat? It's not a style I would have thought them to use.
Lilly Allen is famous for more than her singing. She once declined to sing for a sum of ‘hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin’. The story is known to most and her music firmly in the ‘pop’ genre.
I was listening to ‘Smile’ a few days ago and could not help notice the very Reggae intro to this song.
Once she starts singing about, ‘Fucking that girl next door’, which always makes me ‘Smile’, the beat fades somewhat but never really goes away.
Amy Winehouse suffered a terrible early death while trying to recover from alcohol addiction. I was a huge fan, especially the Back to Black album, which features a very Reggae song, ‘Just Friends'.
Like most songs on the album, it sounds like something from the sixties laced with an abundance of profanity.
She was original if nothing else and her music style is something my late father probably would have liked if he could excuse the colourful language.
Irish soft rockers, The Cranberries who are sadly no longer due to the early death of Dolores O’Riorden, were more famous for driven rock anthems like, ‘Zombie’.
An obscure B-Side that I found yielded a very Reggae sounding song named, ‘What you Were’. Is it Reggae or is it not?
Even more strange is finding something that resembles reggae from zany Icelandic crazy woman Bjork.
I have to admit this is quite borderline, but that beat that makes you swing around says it to me.
‘Venus as a Boy', is one of her lesser-known songs, but one of my favourites. Can you hear any reggae in this song, or am I simply listening a little too hard?
To conclude, this song was a huge hit for The Police but again I never once thought ‘Reggae’ on first hearing it.
‘Walking on the Moon’ is undoubtedly a reggae song from a very ‘pop’ orientated band during their heyday. They used the style in such a way that barely anybody noticed and it still hit the number one spot. Kudos to them.
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