Reggae & Ska > U Reggae & Ska > UB40 > up to 5 GBP

Advantages: Excellent covers of some old reggae standrads
Disadvantages: Sometimes a bit too slick

...it must have been a labour of love can be heard in the loving way the songs are crafted and every track reproduces the excellence of the original. As a lover of real reggae I do have to make one minor criticism and that is that the album is too good. There is far more added production and professionalism to Labour Of Love. The original Jamaican reggae artists of the 1960s were usually poor and often recorded their songs on old second hand recording ...
...limited time available in the recording studios so the songs were often recorded in one take and were little better than demo tracks. What they lacked in production excellence they more than made up for in the immediacy and the urgency of the presentation. So where the old originals will regularly feature bum notes and missed intros the remakes by UB40 are clean and slick. The album opens with the Eric Donaldson song Cherry Oh Baby which UB40 released ... Read review

Advantages: Great songs, great music, serious message
Disadvantages: Some of the songs have lost their context

...9. Little by Little 10. Signing Off 11. Madam Medusa 12. Strange Fruit 13. Reefer Madness On the original vinyl the last three tracks Madam Medusa, Strange Fruit and Reefer Madness were included as an additional 12 inch single bonus record, on the CD all the tracks are obviously on the same disc and to some extent this distorts the balance of the music and album. From the very start of the record the band leaves you in now doubt about the musical ...
..."Tyler is guilty the white judge has said so What right do we have to say it's not so" Although the themes of the song is the conviction of an innocent black man for murder by a racist court in Louisiana the sentiments that it was expressing tuned in to the feelings that existed in the UK too at the time. This was a period of police brutality, inflammatory 'Sus' laws, and increasingly oppressive race policies by the newly elected Tory government ... Read review

Advantages: An excellent listen
Disadvantages: None

I am totally obsessed with UB40 and own nearly all of there albums, this being one of them, if you like reggae and rap this is definately for you. It has a mixture of all their original songs, like red wine and chrieo baby, all the songs are excellent some of them are of UB40 tunes with UB40 rapping over them, I know it sounds tacky but the way it is done is so good, you really need to listen to it, although if you do not own it you may have a job ... Read review