Bob Marley & The Wailers – Rebel Music

It’s compilations like this that leave fans banging their heads against the wall in frustration and despair. Here they are, spending all their time and money searching through and buying up set after set in an ever more desperate attempt to fill the gaps in their Bob Marley & the Wailers‘ collections, and then Rebel Revolution comes along and makes swaths of those collections redundant. The track listing doesn’t give the game away — every one of these numbers, Lee Perry productions one and all, have been repackaged so many times that just looking through the titles is enough to send trainspotters into a coma. It’s the track times, however, that will take fans’ breaths away, for these aren’t just the same old recycled singles for the umpteenth time, but the original extended mixes, appending the instrumental dubs to the vocal cuts. Which means Lee Perry fans are going to be just as keen to hear this set as Wailers fans are. Needless to say, those easily bored by early reggae riddims are not going to be converted by this set, but if you adore the bounce of a reggae guitar, the thump of the bass and drums, and the brightness of an irrepressible organ, Rebel Revolution will finally satisfy your soul. And for Wailers fans, it will replace a slew of scratchy 45s and 33s to boot.