174. Jimmy Cliff and Various Artists, "The Harder They Come: Original Soundtrack"

 


Every white person's second favorite reggae album, this fun collection even features a few songs that haven't been used in beer commercials.  Jimmy Cliff, who is, improbably, still alive and rocking at age 77, put out his first single at 14 years old.  He starred in the movie this soundtrack was drawn from in 1972, and this album was probably the introduction to reggae for most of America.

It's a great album, of course, and you probably know almost every song on it.  The title track has been covered by everyone from the Jerry Garcia Band to Rancid, but I guess my favorite song on here isn't even a Jimmy Cliff number, but rather The Slickers' "Johnny Too Bad," a graceful, loping song with an immediately catchy "whoa-oh" refrain.  (I guess UB40's inevitable cover is probably more famous than the original, even though it is borderline unlistenable.)  Like a lot of reggae, the pleasant, easy music comes with a dark message:

Walking down the road,
With a blade in your waist
(Johnny too bad)
Johnny too bad, Johnny too bad
Walking down the road,
With a blade in your, with a blade your waist
You're too bad Johnny, too bad Johnny, too bad Johnny
With your blade a picking, switchblade licking,
Too bad

This record also has Toots and the Maytals' "Pressure Drop," which we've discussed before, when Toots' album showed up long ago at number 344.  And "Sitting in Limbo," which has also been extensively covered, including by, again, Jerry Garcia.  He must have really loved this album!

A lot of this album scans as easy listening now, but that's just by dint of repetitive hearing and use in all kinds of commercials and whatnot I guess.  But like "Johnny Too Bad," this album is actually profoundly sad, a reflection on growing up dirt poor in the slums of Jamaica.  (To their credit, Pitchfork picked up on this dissonance in their blurb naming the record the 97th best album of the 1970's.)

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? For sure!

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