Tuesday, July 2, 2013

#229: Jah Wobble - Rising Above Bedlam (1991)


Emily: What a great day to come to this album. One of my coworkers found an auxiliary cord to hook up to our gift shop sound system, so we're now free to listen to iPods and phones as we please. Well, some music is probably best left out of the museum, but Jah Wobble was a perfect fit to my afternoon at work. It's a true foray into world music. As I listened, I picked up on reggae, Latin, Caribbean, and rock influences - some all in the same song. Bilingual lyrics - Spanish and English, as far as I could tell - add to the global feeling. I also enjoyed the change in tone throughout the album. The beginning was bright and upbeat, while later tracks were darker and moodier (especially Soledad and Sweet Divinity). The mood picked up again with the aptly named Wonderful World. All in all this was an enjoyable album, and a definite addition to my gift shop rotation.
Favorite Tracks: Relight the Flame; Sweet Divinity; Visions of You

Zack: I don’t really know what to say about this album other than it was quite good. There were some elements of world music mixed in, but I thought it was done better than on the recently listened-to Graceland. I’d never heard of Jah Wobble before or even Public Image Ltd, the band he originally rose to pseudo-prominence from (although I did know they have 2 albums on the list). So I had no idea what to expect, but Visions of Love immediately put me at ease. It’s a really catchy song with an awesome bass section. The next song, Relight the Flame, was different but equally as good. While those first two songs remained my favorites, there were several other tracks that I really enjoyed as well. I probably won’t go back and relisten to this entire album at any point, but you can bet that a few songs will probably be somewhere in my iTunes most played in a few months.
Favorite Tracks: Visions of You; Relight the Flame; Everyman’s an Island

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