Charly US Vinyl & CDs

Review: Rocksteady is the kind of genre you know in sound before you know it in theory. Reversely, it's likely most music fans could point out a Jimmy Cliff or Skatalites track bursting from the speaker and have vague feeling that this is a distinct kind of reggae, but it takes a special kind of wisdom to know that this sound is called rocksteady, and was born of the cross-section of reggae and ska. Although its original upsurge lasted only a couple of years, rocksteady yielded several of Jamaica's most immortal songs, and - owing to the above genealogical scruple - is also probably the most contested of reggae formats with regards to who "pioneered" it, the innovations behind its irresistible beat claimed by a range of practitioners. Here LMLR compile close to 20 originals in the original rocksteady sound, amounting to what might be the yetmost serious wax-bound standoff between said still-undecided greats, still fighting for providential legitimacy.