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Listen here: http://www.rollingst...emiere-20130611

Interesting. I will have to take a listen. Legend to me has always been the quintessential summer album. Also, in my old record store's 25+ year history (before it finally closed for good a while back), Legend was that store's all time #1 seller. Even above the Beatles White Album, which was a close second.

Anyway, I'll be interested to hear some fresh takes on these classics. Legend is a remarkable album.

As soon as I saw the words 'EDM', 'remix' and 'Bob Marley' in the same sentence, I shuddered.
Legend may be a compilation album but it's not any old compilation; it's one of the best loved "best of" albums ever. So releasing a full remix album is very brave, or very stupid. Or very greedy.
For anyone who can't be bothered to listen to it, here is my review, possibly using some incorrect production terminology.

Waiting in Vain: Great start to the album. Nice natural sounding production. Love the almost acapella vox at the beginning, and then a nice build. Head nodding stuff. A funky non-reggae groove.


Stir It up: I like the reverb-y vocals in the intro. The more understated the production is, the better it works. Not sure about one or two gimmicky FX/tricks in there. If the production had been more traditionally dubby (but with vox intact) it might have been even better. Not bad.





Three little birds: Haven’t ruined it but haven’t really improved it either. Similar to the original. If I heard it blasting out of a car window for a few seconds I mightn't notice it was a remix.





Could You be Loved: Less energy than the original. Much preferred the original extended version that was on my Dad’s cassette release of Legend from the 80's (but not on my cd version of the same album funnily enough).





No Woman No Cry: Just NO... NO! Is this really Bob’s voice? What have they done to him? Autotune? I hate the vocal, I hate the commercial disco-house meets Dubstep production. It’s just HORRIBLE! STOP IT!! NOW!!!!!!!! (his son did this remix. pure shame.)





Get Up Stand Up: Stripped back, dubby. Nice little melodic bits added. Natural sounding production works well. Decent effort Thievery Corporation. Would sound good on big speakers.





Satisfy My Soul: Starts off ok. Interesting double time beats and echoey trippy bits. But then at the 4 minute mark… WTF?! Some sort of Dubstep meets rave business with stuttered backing vox. Then back to the pared down chorus. Schizophrenic. I don't know whose soul it will actually satisfy.

I Shot The Sheriff: It’s a drum n bass mix from Roni Size. Exactly how you would imagine a Roni size mix of this track, from 1997. If that’s what you want from this song then ok...







Exodus: Starts off alright in a funky sort of way. Then we get stuttered vox and some dubsteppy stuff. Then it goes alright again, then some more dubsteppy stuff. This might actually work ok if dropped into a dubstep set as a bit of a surprise. But it doesn’t improve on the original.





Easy Skanking. Suffocating synthy sounds and more dubstep production. It’s pish, as the Scots might say. Avoid.



One Love: Dubby intro, nice overall approach but lacks a lot of the warmth of the original. Reminds me of the reggae mixes of Blue Monday ’95. Clinical production sounds and reggae don’t really work.





Redemption Song: Unnecessary extra percussive sounds don’t add to the track, just distract from the song. Guitar sounds nice though.





Is This Love: Dodgy synth intro sounds like Madonna’s Justify My love. Then a drum beat nicked from a 90’s pop-house record. I can’t figure out which one though. Spoken word “Bob” samples make it sound like a bad hip house record. More slightly dated synth sounds. Some pleasant guitar arpeggio in there somewhere. But overall, a bit of a joke. Can’t imagine Bob liking this. For the Benedorm crowd I guess.





Jamming: Annoying pre-programmed percussion. Treated vocals - auto tune I presume. Some synthy sub bass sounds that briefly remind me of RIP Groove. Echo-y piano bits are ok. But overall It’s horrible. The repetitive “motif” (melody being too kind a word) around 2.18 onwards is just nasty. And it just keeps repeating even when the vocals come back in. Ugh.





Punky Reggae Party: Upbeat Brazilian style percussion, then some synth bass, then some FX, a big build up, then a slow reggae groove. Synth noises punctuating Bobs vocals in an unnecessary manner. Some added vox from Lee 'Scratch' Perry I believe, they don’t add anything to the tune. A nice bass breakdown around the 3 min mark. Percussion and energetic noises come back around 4.30 along with some snarling lion noises. Why didn’t more of the track sound like the intro and the final minute? Could have been good.








Buffalo Soldier. Overly busy dubstep FX clashing with original brass. Annoying sequenced bits in the background. Already sounds dated . It won’t stand the test of time.



So it's not all bad. But give it a year or so and everyone will forget this album. In the mean time maybe the record company will make some money from it...

Apologies for the spacing. I pasted it from Word and now it looks funny!

skyscraper, on 20 June 2013 - 12:51 AM, said:

Sounds interesting, I will check it out.

On a related note, I own an older compilation called 'Dreams Of Freedom (Ambient Translations Of Bob Marley In Dub)'. It's very well done, although it isn't limited to tracks from 'Legend'. Unlike the current compilation, this ambient dub one makes an effort to keep the chill feeling of a Marley record, but with an electronic vibe.

http://www.discogs.c...release/1904299

I recommend it.

ThePumisher, on 20 June 2013 - 3:13 PM, said:

No, I have this problem too. It's not something you can edit - there's just some weird inability to change stuff like this when you make a post. It caused my "Don't Think" recap to change fonts halfway through, for instance.

Champiness, on 20 June 2013 - 9:36 PM, said:

Kind of you to come to my defence Champiness. If I delete/reduce the spaces, they seem to go completely so that all the text just runs into itself with no space at all. That looks even worse imo. On the other hand maybe I am a dumbass and deserve to have the piss taken...

satur8, on 20 June 2013 - 10:08 PM, said:

I 'kin love dub reggae so I thought I'd give this a listen. First track in and I'm rather impressed! Cheers

Thanks for sharing this thing! some tracks are sooo bad that they become good again. a lot of guilty pleasures . some tracks are genuinely good, but most is just fun. sounds like a good soundtrack for the coming summer. i will def. play this in the sunshine

the dub versions are way better btw!

iguanapunk, on 21 June 2013 - 4:24 PM, said:

Eis-T, on 25 June 2013 - 10:01 AM, said:

Glad you guys like them.

I still need to check out the newer remixes.

The trailer will give you an idea of the passion of the people involved. There's always that automatic assumption that it's just a cash in, which it normally is but occasionally something magical appears. Love by The Beatles is a good example of this.

Love by The Beatles is a great example.

I'll see your great and I'll raise you incredible.

I call, cue up the tunes...and pass it on the left hand side.