Musically, reggae is easier to hear than to define. One frustrated American drummer who found the oddly sprung rhythm difficult to master described it as inside out rock and roll with accents on the second two beats, and you break your back just trying to keep it going. Most Jamaican musicians demur when asked for a definition of the word reggae... Reggae mean comin’ from d’ people, you know. Ever'day ting, like from d’ ghetto. Majority beat. Regular beat that people use like food down there. We put music to it, make a dance out of it. I would say that reggae mean comin’ from d’ roots, ghetto music. Means poverty, suffering, and in the end, maybe union with God
Reggae appears to have evolved in the mid sixties from the confluence of key native rhythms... with American soul music that is heavily broadcast throughout the Caribbean from the States, especially James Brown and Otis Redding. Lyrical inspiration ranged from the traditional, calypso tinged island gospel to Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns.
Like rock and roll, reggae has both a light and a dark side. The light is perhaps personified by Jimmy Cliff and the Maytals... The dark side of reggae comes through the music of Bob Marley and the Wailers, undeniably Jamaica's most exciting band. Singer/writer Marley, the Black Prince of reggae, propels the Wailers’ music with convulsive swing and unrelenting tension. A self proclaimed Rasta prophet, Marley's lyrical concerns are the cracking of whips in the slave ships of long ago and the inevitable black revolution.
Smashing Pumpkins - A Stitch In Time
- Genre: Rock
- Produced by: Billy Corgan, Kerry Brown, Bjorn Thorsrud, Howard Willing
- Released on: Mar 2, 2010
"The Smashing Pumpkins created a postpunk blend of progressive rock, grunge, and psychedelia that incorporated the brooding atmospherics of goth rock and the adventurous melodiousness of dream pop bands."
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