Search - Culture :: Crucial Reggae

Good, but Not Good Enough

Gavin B. | St. Louis MO | 07/16/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

""This Is Crucial Reggae" is a RAS Records series of budget priced albums that provide a showcase of various reggae acts. The series serves as a good point of entry for a novice to explore the music of some less stellar, but "crucial" artists like Barrington Levy, J.C. Lodge, Inner Circle, and Peter Broggs. The "Crucial Reggae" series also includes 12 song collections of better known artists like, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff and this showcase 12 song showcase of Culture.



In the case of some less prolific reggae artists, a 12 song collection gives a novice reggae fan a good snapshot of the talent of an artist. This is not the case with Culture and the songs of founder Joseph Hill. Hill is one of the most consistent and prolific songwriters the old school roots generation of reggae artists.



Culture is among a handful of first generation pioneers who personify the reggae's golden age. Culture distinguished themselves for their militant stance and their devotion to a message of Rastafarian consciousness. As Bob Marley's international success led him to broaden his message to universal one love, Joseph Hill stayed at the roots and became a voice of Jamaica's dispossessed in the tenement yards of Trenchtown. With the possible exception of Marley and Winston Rodney (Burning Spear), nobody embodied the message of Rasta as Joseph Hill. Hill was at the foundation of the house built by the first generation of reggae music.



"This Is Crucial Reggae" has uniformly good music on it, but as previous collections of Culture's music, "Crucial Reggae" fails to give the listener a complete perspective on the scope of Joseph Hill's talent or contributions to reggae music. Over the span of 27 years, Culture has produced 27 albums, dozens of singles and hundreds dub remixes of their work. As it presently stands, no record label has taken the initiative to compile an all encompassing 2 or 3 CD anthology that would do justice to the music of Culture.



By way of comparison, there have been three multi-disc anthologies of Burning Spear's music that contain 30 plus songs. The reissues and collections of Bob Marley's music are too numerous to count. It would seem like a specialty label like Rhino could fill in the gap and issue a decent multi-disc retrospective of Culture's music. The biggest barrier to any "reissue" or "anthology" project is the negotiation of licensing rights, but Rhino has a great deal of expertise at navigating the rough waters of music ownership.



When all is said and done, Culture's "This Is Crucial Reggae" is good, but not good enough. I'd recommend a trio of albums, Culture made for Shenancie Records in the late Seventies, as a better entree to Culture's music. "Harder Than the Rest" (1978), "Two Sevens Clash" (1978) & "Cumbolo" (1979) are early studio albums and simply have better music than "This Is Crucial Reggae." As with other Culture collections, "This is Crucial Reggae" misses the mark by its lack of depth. I'm not commenting on quality, each song on "Crucial Reggae" is great reggae music on it's own terms. The problem is that the career of Culture is impossible to summarize with 12 out-of-context songs. Hopefully somebody will do justice to Culture, by issuing a decent multi-disc anthology of their music. It's long overdue."