Album Review
Genre: New Roots
Format: CD Album
Reviewer: Jonas Bæk
Added: Sun, Dec 20, 2009
Various Artists ››
Strictly The Best Vol. 40
The last quarter of the year is always a great year for reggae and dancehall releases, as so many compilations comes out summing up the year that has passed – and set the trend for the year to come. Strictly The Best series was always been a part of this trend, and after a few years with only one release at a time – VP began last year with the traditional dual-release with a reggae compilation and a dancehall compilations. This review will focus on the reggae part, Strictly The Best volume 40.
Strictly The Best 40 is a 16 track compilation which takes some of the best reggae tunes from 2009 and make them public available, as the vinyl single distribution almost has come to a halt, and these songs in particular are difficult to get (the legal way). But none the less, this album doesn’t reflect Jamaican music as it is right now – but more which part of the Jamaican reggae which is popular outside Jamaica. Hardly any of the songs on Strictly The Best 40 has topped the charts in Jamaica.
The tracklist features some interesting artists with some interesting tunes, such as the new big voice Hezron (So In Love), Gappy Ranks (Heaven In Her Eyes) and the Swedish comet Million Vibez (Me & You) But also more seasoned artists like Courtney John (Lucky Man), Bitty McLean (Fall In Love) and Busy Signal on the fantastic Phil Collins cover tune One More Night, which shows why Busy Signal continues to be such a popular artists both in Dancehall but indeed also in reggae music. Interestingly new singjay Jah Vinci got a spot on the last slot on the album with the tune Baby Girl I Am Alone. Take note on this artists, as Jah Vinci has a bread palette of tracks out right now.
Strictly The Best 40 is a solid and good compilation, which spans very wide – perhaps too wide, as there doesn’t seem to be a structure for either part of the market. The album is too unstructured to fall in on category. Individually the songs are very well picked.
© 2004-2009 reggaeXplosion.dk - all rights reserved.