400% Dynamite - Various Artists

Track List:

1. Bongo Herman - Chairman of the Board
3. Prince Buster - Girl Why Don't You Answer
4. Barrington Levy - Under Me Sensi
5. Lloyd Robinson - Cuss Cuss
6. King Tubby - King Tubby Dub
7. Dennis Alcapone - Cassius Clay
8. Honey Boy Martin - Dreader than Dread
9. Toots and the Maytals - 54 46 Was My Number
10. General Degree - Pot Cover
11. Paris Connection - Who's That Lady
12. U-roy - Stick Together
13. Lyn Taitt - Soul Stew
14. Granville williams Orchestra - Hi life
15. Cimarons - We Are Not the Same

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2000

A compilation which I can only assume must have been a gift at some point. Missing track 2 (Tenor Saw & Buju Banton -  Ring The Alarm Quick) for some reason. Ho-hum.

54 46 Was My Number becomes the first track to feature twice in this play-log, which is probably going to be the most noticeable thing about this post.

I suspect casualties here before I begin, and the first track confirms that will be the case. It is just not my cup of tea. I am hopeful of find something worth keeping in the midst of this somewhere though.

I am not sure that I can find anything interesting to add about this - good nor bad. I have already spilled a few of my feelings on reggae when listening to Toots and the Maytals, so I do not want to re-cover that ground. My opinion of the music is not that low so there are no interesting rants, negative dissection or similar to share, and I am not positively enough engaged to generate commentary. That said, I quite like Under Me Sensi - it presents with a more engaging style and whilst it is a little too repetitive for my case, the "woah" vocal has a charm.

When that song ends, I get a surprise. The ordering of tracks in my library is not as per the list in the caption here (which was pulled from Amazon) but I am not about to rearrange it now. Maybe the tags got screwed somehow. 

I am pleasantly surprised by what I am hearing though, and 5 tracks in, only 2 are for the chop. 54 46 will get added to this (I can no reason to keep a second version) but the album is shaping up better than expected. I recognise King Tubby Dub from plays that came up on library shuffle previously and it is another keeper. I think the bass is slightly lighter than on most of the Jamaican music I have been exposed to over the years, and it makes for a more pleasant sound in my book. Personal taste, and all, but apparently enough for me to have previously "loved" it on LastFM. I cannot say the same for Dreader than Dread, which I just find dull, or Cassius Clay which feels bland somehow for a track about one of history's greatest sporting icons.

In my minds eye Pot Cover would be so much better if it was actually a cover of Pot by The Phoenix Foundation (from Buffalo) - that would be one hell of an interesting song to see done in different styles but keeping the charm.

It seems that the Amazon listing even gets a track name wrong. "Soul Stew" should be "Soul Food". I feel that I should change this, but if I do I would also feel compelled to sort out the ordering too and frankly I cannot be bothered with that faff so I will instead leave the error there.

As the album draws to a close I feel that actually it worked in general. Compilations are actually pretty decent windows on styles when you are not familiar with them, and shifting from artist to artist tends to make each track sound different. Comparing this listen to 20 Massive Hits it comes out favourably, as the Maytal's best of ended up feeling much more samey. I have kept 8 tracks in the end, discarding 6. I am happy with this paring down.

20 Massive Hits - Toots and the Maytals

Track List:

1. 54-46 That's My Number
2. Dr Lester
3. One Eye Enos
4. Alidina
5. Pressure Drop
6. Sweet & Dandy
7. Bam Bam
8. Night and Day
9. Monkey Man
10. Monkey Girl
11. Peeping Tom
12. Gold & Silver
13. Sun, Moon And Star
14. She's My Scorcher
15. Pee Pee Cluck Cluck
16. Do the Reggay
17. If You Act This Way
18. It Must Be True Love
19. Time Tough
20. Funky Kingston

Running Time: 62 minutes
Released: 2000

The first "best of" in this list. A considered "I should widen my exposure in this direction" buy. Reggae is not necessarily a genre I have a huge amount of time for (though there is more than just this album in my library) so this stands out a bit in that regard.

That reminds me of a Meta post I might make in a few entries time about how useless genre-typing can be in music, and therefore why I have refused to use any in the labels. For another time.

I am quite glad most of the tunes are short. As I launch into the listen it strikes me that too long of any one groove here might cause me to lose interest. However if each song is over before the repetitive nature of the backing track gets too old that problem goes away, and there is definitely a magic quality to Toots' voice even if a lot of what he is singing appears to be nonsense on first contact. This feels born of is place and time... it is not sunny here at all and it feels like this album would be better accompanied by a strong sun and lazy day. Alas; 1 of 2 is not sufficient.

I reckon that as the tracks go by I will recognise a lot more musically that I do by name - either from random plays in my history or through exposure in wider media. At the moment though, I find that listening is not prompting much in the way of intelligible thought to commit to type. It is pleasant enough but not engaging me... it feels like maybe there is an element missing in many of the tracks; something to sit over the groove and encourage tuning in rather than tuning out. I cannot quite put my finger on it.

Reading up on their LastFM biography, I had not realised that the Maytals were around for the birth of reggae as a term, if not as a style. Of course, that could be half-truth or outright lie for all I know.

Ah, Bam Bam... this is familiar though I can't think what it is that sampled it, for I am certain it is a sample that I recognise not this rendition. Food for thought; it may annoy me. I suppose I could Google it but I do not like admitting a failure of my recollection when "I'll get it, I just need a moment". Hah!

Night and Day is a very different sound, and hey there is more going on too, or maybe it just seems so because the relative levels are different. Either way it is a much more interesting listen, though paradoxically also less pleasing a track.

Whilst I can see the appeal of this music as an accompaniment to chilling, it does not quite do it for me. Trying to articulate why: the patterns are repeated pretty reliably and consistently. This is great for helping you zone out and lay back. However I personally find that most of the time the strength of the bass (a great plus-point for many fans, I am sure) is just a touch too much for comfort. Meanwhile the staccato nature of the melodies I find to be less conducive to relaxation than a smoother sound that flows over me.  That would be fine if it encouraged an "active" attention in that chilling - but as mentioned above, in most tracks here there is not enough going on in those melodies to make my ears stand to attention. This deconstruction is more about what I look for in a relaxation tune than a critique of the style and it goes some way to explaining why this listen is not really working for me. I suppose the other side of that is that I am not even trying to relax, really, since I am typing this. Maybe I should leave the keys for a bit.

I think I picked the wrong time to do that... the chicken crowing at the start of Pee Pee Cluck Cluck (what were they thinking?) was an unpleasant call to attention. ... Nah, sitting back is not helping; wrong music/wrong mood to relax - though It Must Be True Love is much more suitable for that.

I do not expect to clear Toots and the Maytals from my library. I think that if I was to hear the odd tune now and again I would appreciate it more than now, listening to 20 back-to-back. I do not dislike it, I just do not find an hour of it either stimulating or relaxing. I can hear the differences between each song well enough (and for that it is certainly better than, say, The 5th Exotic) but there is a sameness to proceeding through this collection that transcends that and that I find hard to communicate.

That trend is bucked a little bit at the end of the album somehow - I think it may be down to more recognisible songs - but not enough to dispel the overall impression.