Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian At Best

Joe writes: My brother sent me a Pitchfork link to this in February and now it's everywhere (or it might seem that way if you listen to a lot of Radio 1 in the evenings, and 6 Music, which I do).

introducing a new contributor to the blog

Joe writes: My brother Ben's first post, about Bob Marley, is below. Ben is two years older than me so introduced me to a lot of music from Aztec Camera to Faith No More to Lord Tanamo. He wanted to be called Worldsgreatestmusicbrother on here but he has ended up with plain old Ben Taylor.

Bob Marley and the Wailers: Confrontation

Ben writes:

I was introduced to Bob Marley through the 'Legend' compilation of his top 40 hits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_(Bob_Marley_%26_The_Wailers_album) - and though it contains some brilliant tracks, it somehow seemed twee and irritating as it was played approximately 47 times on the coach on a school wind band trip to Austria (you had to be there, I suppose).

Many years later, though, I'd come across the truly wonderful 'Roots of Reggae Vol. 3' compilation 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roots-Reggae-Vol-3-Various/dp/B00000ARCI - which will no doubt be the subject of a future post - which showed that early reggae was, well, just sublime - fun and uplifting in the way that nearly all my favourite music of the late 80s and 90s wasn't.

So when I moved into a new flat and discovered that someone had left a whole box set of Bob Marley and the Wailers, I fell upon it with some anticipation. I wasn't disappointed, though I only recently learnt that my favourite album, Confrontation, was released posthumously with a bunch of overdubbing and remixing (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confrontation_(Bob_Marley_%26_The_Wailers_album).

It's a classic album in its entirety - uplifting, inspired, political, and about liberation.

Two tracks set the tone (and should link to a whole album youtube playlist - with the added bonus that they feature the colourful, wacky, and oddly symbolic cover art of Bob with big dreads in rasta colours slaying a purple dragon)...

'Jump Nyabinghi'. Google Nyabinghi and you're straight into the fascinating world of Rastafarianism - it's a drum, a goddess, a ceremony, a spriritually posessed woman, black victory, and death to the white oppressor, all in one. Anyway, it's a great song:

Biblical/rastafrian references abound, and in another favourite, 'Chant Down Bablyon', the theme is again the destruction of 'Babylon'.

All the lyrics are worth a read - http://www.angelfire.com/fm/reggae/confro.htm - or better still, a listen.