When I first heard of this LP I thought to myself.....Gold....sounds like classic oldies.......dancehall....oh nice, lots of Barrington, Barry Brown, Lone Ranger that type of thing......well imagine my surprise then when I opened it up and found it was full of "dancehall" tunes from the past couple of years. Now I have to admit I'm a bit of a dinosaur, and like my reggae generally from the early 60's up to around the mid eighties, so I'm not fully in touch with today's artists. Still although a little disappointed I continued. This LP, a lot like a lot of similar LP's in this and the R&B / Club field, starts off with all the user friendly, popular hits right up front, before going to the darker and what I suppose has to be considered the more "underground" to the general record buying public, though I dare say most fans of these genres would start from the back and work to the front?
First up here is Estelle, yes she of 'American Boy' fame. This time she has Sean Paul helping her out rather than Kanye West. This as you'd expect is a very polished reggae R&B hybrid, with Estelles soft vocal being nicely complimented by Paul's 'Chat', and surprisingly to me I have to say I actually quite enjoy. This followed by Jasmine Sullivan, “I Need U Bad”, which is a stormin' little number. Again a reggae R&B cross but with a real in yer face bass riddim.
The next couple of tracks for me are just awful, what I'd call 'holiday reggae' tracks. The first up is by Brick & Lace and entitled 'Love Is Wicked'. Now I don't on the whole like to criticise things on here, if I don't like it I won't write it, after all this is a blog for hopeful promoting good vibes, but this song, while it might sound alright while if holidaying in the med, has those synth pan pipes and brass sounds, that sound like some dodgy cabaret act. The song lyrically is also very 'slack', but it is also very annoyingly catchy, and after a couple of listens I found my self singing "ya love is wicked, wicked" all the time...arrggghhh!! This is then followed by Serani's 'Playing Games', which just did nothing for me at all.
'So Special' by Mavado is a return to a tougher sounding dancehall style on what is a cut up of the previous tunes riddim I believe. From here on the user friendly style of the LP also tends to fade off some what, both musically and lyrically. Sure you still have the softer sounds of Beres Hammond's 'See you again', a tune that breaks away from the dancehall style format of the LP, as he delivers a classic easy flowing lovers rock tune. As too to some extent do Etana & Alborosie with the quite schmaltzy 'Blessings'. Also Queen Ifrica is here with her excellent soft acoustic melody 'Far Away', taken from her LP 'Welcome To Montego Bay', reviewed on here in September. However you also get the hard hitting Tarrus Riley 'Start A New', a song all about domestic violence, while Prodigal Son berates child rapists with 'Head Cyaan Hot So'. This is then followed by Busy Signal's 'Praise And Worship', which is a kind of medley of reworked gospel standards including Rivers of Babylon, When The Saints and Wings Of A Dove [no...not the Madness tune] and more. Was this intended to lighten the mood a bit?
Reggae Gold....well not really reggae in the purist sense in my mind, and most probably to many crossover tunes for fans of the genre, and as for gold well I doubt very much many of these will be regarded with great affection in a few years time. Despite this if you are a bit adventurous with diverse tastes then you may welcome this snap shot of modern reggae hybrids. By no means a classic but with more than a few nice tunes.
First up here is Estelle, yes she of 'American Boy' fame. This time she has Sean Paul helping her out rather than Kanye West. This as you'd expect is a very polished reggae R&B hybrid, with Estelles soft vocal being nicely complimented by Paul's 'Chat', and surprisingly to me I have to say I actually quite enjoy. This followed by Jasmine Sullivan, “I Need U Bad”, which is a stormin' little number. Again a reggae R&B cross but with a real in yer face bass riddim.
The next couple of tracks for me are just awful, what I'd call 'holiday reggae' tracks. The first up is by Brick & Lace and entitled 'Love Is Wicked'. Now I don't on the whole like to criticise things on here, if I don't like it I won't write it, after all this is a blog for hopeful promoting good vibes, but this song, while it might sound alright while if holidaying in the med, has those synth pan pipes and brass sounds, that sound like some dodgy cabaret act. The song lyrically is also very 'slack', but it is also very annoyingly catchy, and after a couple of listens I found my self singing "ya love is wicked, wicked" all the time...arrggghhh!! This is then followed by Serani's 'Playing Games', which just did nothing for me at all.
'So Special' by Mavado is a return to a tougher sounding dancehall style on what is a cut up of the previous tunes riddim I believe. From here on the user friendly style of the LP also tends to fade off some what, both musically and lyrically. Sure you still have the softer sounds of Beres Hammond's 'See you again', a tune that breaks away from the dancehall style format of the LP, as he delivers a classic easy flowing lovers rock tune. As too to some extent do Etana & Alborosie with the quite schmaltzy 'Blessings'. Also Queen Ifrica is here with her excellent soft acoustic melody 'Far Away', taken from her LP 'Welcome To Montego Bay', reviewed on here in September. However you also get the hard hitting Tarrus Riley 'Start A New', a song all about domestic violence, while Prodigal Son berates child rapists with 'Head Cyaan Hot So'. This is then followed by Busy Signal's 'Praise And Worship', which is a kind of medley of reworked gospel standards including Rivers of Babylon, When The Saints and Wings Of A Dove [no...not the Madness tune] and more. Was this intended to lighten the mood a bit?
Reggae Gold....well not really reggae in the purist sense in my mind, and most probably to many crossover tunes for fans of the genre, and as for gold well I doubt very much many of these will be regarded with great affection in a few years time. Despite this if you are a bit adventurous with diverse tastes then you may welcome this snap shot of modern reggae hybrids. By no means a classic but with more than a few nice tunes.
Tracklist:
01 Estelle featuring Sean Paul - Come over
02 Jazmine Sulliver - Need u bad
03 Brick & Lace - Love is wicked
04 Serani - Playing games
05 Mavado - So special
06 Elephant Man - Nuh linga
07 Jah Vinci - Watch your friends
08 Chino featuring Stephen "Di Genius" McGregor
09 Beres Hammond - See you again
10 Etana & Alborosie - Blessings
11 Tarrus Riley - Start a new
12 Queen Ifrica - Far away
13 Prodigal Son - Head cyaan hot so
14 Busy Signal - Praise and worship
15 Laden - Money over war
16 Elephant Man - Dance and sweep
17 T.O.K. - Couple up
18 I Wayne - Leave if you want to leave
18 I Wayne - Leave if you want to leave
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