Dreadlock holiday
“I don’t like reggae,” says Andrea Harris:
The reason so many white people like reggae is because most white people live well above the Tropic of Cancer and thus think of reggae and other genres of “island” music as “exotic” and a promise of an escape from driving down icy streets every day to a nine-to-five job or shoveling snow. I sympathize, but since I actually grew up in the tropics I also know that living year-round with humidity in the 90s coupled with temperatures in same, every insect on earth, and a yearly threat of hurricanes isn’t exactly a vacation, and the prevalence of music where every single song has the same drunken-donkey-walk rhythm and must always be sung in high, whining tones doesn’t help.
Although I think she hit upon the truth of the matter elsewhere:
That song, “No Woman No Cry”? Hey, how about not getting stoned on weed and sitting around like a stinky lump.
The operative phrase here is “stoned on weed.” The difference, though, is that American stoners are not particularly inclined to, say, shoot the sheriff.
CT »
24 April 2009 · 9:42 am
Can’t say that my long stretch in near-tropical Florida, with humidity and hurricanes and all, ever soured me on reggae. Although beyond the Marley standards and dub, I’m not heavily invested into it. Then again, my personal absence of herbal intake might have something to do with that :)
McGehee »
24 April 2009 · 9:48 am
It’s funny how people who spend all day sitting around getting stoned and the only thing they worry about is their next opportunity to sit around and get stoned, insist that weed isn’t addictive.
Jeff Brokaw »
24 April 2009 · 10:06 am
The answer is 10cc. What do I win? ;-)
Reggae does get tiring if it’s all you ever hear. This is true of any genre of music, though.
CGHill »
24 April 2009 · 10:21 am
I admit to actually liking the stuff in small doses, despite having never done anything ever passed off as bud within a hundred yards of Trenchtown, and I can even stand ska. It probably helps that the first such record I actually happened upon came nowhere close to being a US hit, which meant none of the overexposure that accompanied, for instance, various Bob Marley tracks.
That first record? Prince Buster’s “Ten Commandments of Man,” from 1967, an amazing blend of utter misogyny and preposterous silliness.
Lisa Paul »
24 April 2009 · 12:40 pm
Some of us who lived through the Seventies in the US have a fond spot for Reggae. Back then, it was the only refuge from Disco. Although the Brits had some interesting stuff, like David Bowie, that never made it over the Pond until much later.
CGHill »
24 April 2009 · 5:05 pm
I was fond of the punk/ska hybrid called 2 Tone, which surfaced in the UK in the late 1970s. Most of the records were great fun, but some of them were downright scary: “The Boiler” by Rhoda Dakar and the Special AKA, unlike Rhoda’s bouncy sides with the Bodysnatchers, might be the most horrifying 45-rpm single ever released.
Lisa paul »
24 April 2009 · 7:59 pm
Loved 2 Tone but absolutely agree with you on The Boiler. A narrative of rape and degradation. Get me back to where they’re just shooting the sheriff.