Bob Marley & The Wailers – Rastaman Vibration

Reviewing for Rolling Stone in 1976, Robert Palmer said that on the album Marley consummately performs "a dual role as spokesman for the Third World's disadvantaged and avatar of a highly commercial brand of popular music". While lacking the forceful, intricate quality of the Wailers' past line-up, "the sensitive, careful listener will learn from Rastaman Vibration something of the pain, rage and determination of Shantytown, Jamaica, and perhaps something of the community's political and cultural fragmentation as well", Palmer concluded.

Village Voice critic Robert Christgau said if the record's first side "makes it seem that reggae has turned into the rasta word for boogie—even to a Trenchtown tragedy recited with all the toughness of an imprecation against litter—the unimpassioned sweetness of most of side two sounds like a function of reflective distance, assured in its hard-won calm. Some of it's even better."

The singer Bilal names it among his 25 favourite albums, citing the production's handling of "different rock guitar lines and organ lines".

From Wikipedia

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