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Comment by Simon_O_Rourke | Hacker News Reader

There's no decent reggae after the early 1980s, apart from UB40 knock off bands. Give me the Pioneers, Dave and Ansel Collins or Justin Hinds any day.

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I'm a avid rocksteady listener. Visited many old ska, rocksteady and roots festivals and concerts. I love the old stuff.

But it is ignorant and dismissive to place anything after an arbitrary date under the label "not decent". Plenty of wonderful stuff.

I'm certain you'll agree that for example Lee Scratch Perry produced wonderful music until the day of his death (August 2021). What he did with The Upsetters is magic. But even the albums he made in the months before his death are far more than "decent".

> There's no decent reggae after the early 1980s ...

Big reggae fan here (old reggae) but Mike Love, "Permanent Holiday" is quite something:

https://youtu.be/fU7hZ3smj0g

Holy crap. Thanks for this.

This is nonsense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3epH_KNnwYE

I'm sure there's a million other reggae artists that I've yet to discover, but nothing personally hits more than roots reggae, I wish there were more of 1970s-1990s Lacksley Castell, Hugh Mundell, Johnny Osbourne, Barrington Levy, Sammie Dread, Johnnie Clark, etc, etc,

Going to listen to some you mentioned I don't know...

Just from the top of my head in case some here don't know them (if I start looking in my archive I'll find lots of stuff)... Not all "roots" but it's old stuff.

Zap Pow, "This is Reggae music": (I used to start my reggae compilation with this one)

https://youtu.be/-6G6PiRGCaU

Bunny Wailer:

https://youtu.be/tr0dyo7XGcw

Errol Dunkley:

https://youtu.be/D5Tg1l4pk94

Ranking Dread:

https://youtu.be/hkM14QObC9o (this one is really cool for the song talks about many OG reggae artists)

Jo Jo Bennett:

https://youtu.be/6Gawp4UPO2I

Marcia Griffiths:

https://youtu.be/ZA9FUDw3TNk (the theme is not "roots" but, darn, she's a good Jamaican reggae singer)

Max Romeo:

https://youtu.be/XcMNfX5yh28

John Holt:

https://youtu.be/smWVKR_LYjs

Horace Andy:

https://youtu.be/RCHTAu4In70

Linval Thompson:

https://youtu.be/2f7G9HFEbao

Delroy Wilson, Cornell Campbell, Don Carlos, Carlton & The Shoes, Garnett Silk, Bob Andy, Freddie McGregor, Frankie Paul... Personally I prefer the sound of the late 60s — Rocksteady: The Paragons, Lynn Taitt, Prince Buster, Alton Ellis, Phyllis Dillon, Bob & the Beltones, The Progressions...

I appreciate the recommendations!

Roots reggae was the only music I played my baby was in the hospital. So much so, I actually created a Spotify playlist of all of the songs we jammed together to.

Let me know what you think https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1qp5AfSmmKLwefGyaJfLxP

You've got a nice playlist there. #63 - If I Could Rule This World is one of my all time favorites.

Most of the Soul Jazz Records samplers are on Spotify, well worth a listen. Unfortunately Spotify is missing many of the older/rarer tunes. There are some collectors who record their 45s and upload to Youtube:

- https://www.youtube.com/c/VROCKET/videos

- https://www.youtube.com/user/jahbuzzz/videos

- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfvSuY0GF6i7yPCX2qnrw5Q/vid...

- https://www.youtube.com/c/aeon23/videos

If you are into more funky Reggae stuff check out Jackie Mittoo.

Yes, what a beautiful song! Alton Ellis and his sister Hortense really are timeless.

Awesome, I'll check them out! Appreciate it!

Not heard of Zap Pow! Checking them out now. I just replied to a post below, but I'll do it here too, I created a Spotify playlist of roots reggae I played to my lil girl while she was in the hospital.

It's full of my/our favourite roots, and includes most of those artists! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1qp5AfSmmKLwefGyaJfLxP

Beres Hammond, Jah Cure, Gyptian, Bitty mcLean ... ? I could go on. Relatively newer artists but on dub (old school) style riddims

The Frightnrs!

Presumably plenty of Jamaicans (and others) would disagree, but I do personally like the sound of the 70s recordings best, especially the dubs, The Revolutionaries, Roots Radics, etc. Newer reggae has a lot of newer pop in it, auto-tune, plastic-y production.

It was never meant to stay the same, the old riddim culture went on for a long period without change... New dancehall is a bit too soft for me as well, I like ragga most, but I do miss the classic "red light" love song era... I'm working to remix some of the classics myself, and to create new vibes (without using auto tune).

There are many artists working low key on different sounds, but right now the industry is pushing the bubble-gum-gangster sound that is most popular right now... You've got to search real deep on YouTube for the best stuff.

I like the sound of those records too. I kinda wonder how much of it was the access to gear they had, I know lots of sound systems were DIY and people like Tubby and Scientist were electrical engineers.

Yeah sure, if you say so. How about this. Let's restrict it to the Pacific islands only and see what's been happening in reggae since the 80s.

There's a thriving scene in Hawaii with great music coming out to this day.

This one features two amazing vocalists, Irie Love and Fiji (George Veikoso)

It is wut it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZVF7QWjs44

Then there's New Zealand:

Katchafire: Way Beyond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjKLocagFPw

I could have picked dozens of other great songs.

I love the French digital dub scene for one, Pupajim, Panda dub, Dubamix, Mayd Hubb all put out fantastic pieces, like this one for instance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgjvtib-Xi0

Midnite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJADi9axZ4E&t=9s. RIP Vaughn.

Wouln't you call groundation at least decent?

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