15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE NEW BIBLE OF JAMAICAN MUSIC? YES!, July 28, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Reggae Routes: The Story of Jamaican Music (Paperback)
The newspaper reviews are right. Reggae Routes really is the new bible of Jamaican music. It makes every other book ever written on reggae look superficial - not surprising considering it's the only one ever written by someone born and bred in Jamaica. But it's more than just a great reggae book, it's an insightfull look at Jamaica and popular music in general. It's certainly a well researched book. The end chapter about Rastafarianism is the best piece I've ever seen on the subject. And Reggae Routes is wonderfully written, both stylish and funny. Once you start it you can't put it down. Simply a must buy for anyone interested in Reggae, Jamaica, Rastafarianism, or popular world music.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
INADEQUATE, September 13, 2002
This review is from: Reggae Routes: The Story of Jamaican Music (Paperback)
This book certainly makes a lot of bold claims for itself. According to the back cover it's "the authentic story of Jamaican popular music" as well as being "the best book ever written on reggae". So my first disappointment after receiving "Reggae routes" (a gift from a well-meaning friend) was to discover how short it is. Although the authors seem to think that they've written a "reggae bible", in reality it barely qualifies as a primer, and not a very good one at that.
The book is divided into 3 sections, so it makes sense to consider each one in turn.
Section 1 briefly outlines the history of Jamaican music and on the whole is a pretty good introduction to the subject, but it's nothing like the definitive account I was expecting. The only really bad chapter is "Reggae international", which mainly consists of well-worn cliches about Bob Marley and actually says very little about the impact reggae has made beyond the shores of Jamaica, particularly in the UK since the 1960s, or about the huge influence of Jamaican music on today's rave and dj culture, or its specific contributions to the development of hip hop as well as more recent phenomena like drum 'n' bass.
In Section 2 the authors list and discuss memorable recordings from the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s in roughly chronological order, and although most of their choices are worthy of inclusion, it's a far from comprehensive selection, mainly because they focus entirely on singles. It's true that reggae is without doubt a singles-driven genre, but failure to include some of the great albums from the last four decades means that many of Jamaica's finest recordings aren't even mentioned in "Reggae routes". What's worse is that some really significant singles are also missing, for example Wayne Smith's seminal King Jammy produced "Under mi sleng teng" (which kicked off the digital era in the mid-1980s) isn't included in the authors' 80s selection.
It also rapidly becomes clear that they don't have anything original to say about the music, and their comments about individual records are often brief, insipid or clearly borrowed from other sources. This part of the book is also littered with mistakes, and mainly demonstrates the complete opposite of what Chang & Chen would like you to believe, ie the mere fact that you're from Jamaica does not make you an expert on reggae music (I was born in England, but that doesn't make me an expert on cricket)....
They are clearly unfamiliar with some of the records they review. For example their brief description of U-Roy's "Natty rebel" correctly states that it's based on a recording of the Bob Marley song "Soul rebel", but they don't seem to realise that the recording in question is a cover version by the Gladiators (from their excellent "Trenchtown mix-up" album) and not by Bob Marley himself. Quite a few of the singles have also been assigned to the wrong year, which might be understandable for some of the more obscure tracks, but it's hard to believe that they don't know when massive hits like Marley's "Three little birds" came out....
Section 3 mainly consists of lists: Jamaican radio charts for each year from 1960 to 1997, a "most popular artists" chart (based on the radio charts), the authors' top 100 reggae chart (featuring their favourite tracks from 1960 - 1980) and top 30 dancehall chart (featuring tracks from 1983 - 1996). It's a pity that the latter two charts consist solely of the two lists of records with no explanatory comments, because it would be interesting to know why the authors decided that these 130 tracks are better than the huge number of others which weren't included. Failing this, it would have been helpful to cross-reference each item in the chart with the page on which it is discussed in Section 2 of the book (although quite a few of them don't actually appear in Section 2). It's also a shame that the authors didn't compile an album chart, which readers would probably find more useful, and I'm mystified as to why they don't seem to think that anything worthwhile happened in 1981 and 1982! The book finishes with a list of sources and references and a very short essay about Rastafarianism, which for some reason is tagged on rather untidily at the end.
Throughout the book the very variable quality of the photos and artwork is another let-down. Many of the images are either not well integrated with the text or poorly reproduced. For example, check out the pic of Lady Saw on p213 - although I'm quite prepared to believe it's really her, the photo is so blurred that it could just as easily be Nancy Reagan or even an alien from another planet! In addition, the choice of images to accompany individual sections of text is sometimes rather strange. For example, the authors illustrate their review of Black Uhuru's "Solidarity" with a picture of the front cover of the group's "Sinsemilla" album, which came out four years earlier and doesn't contain the track in question (it's actually from an album called "Anthem"). And there are other examples which are just as bad....
Overall, "Reggae routes" is the worst book on the subject that I've read, and as there are several infinitely superior reggae guides on the market, I'd strongly recommend that you avoid it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE DEFINTIVE BOOK ON REGGAE, October 24, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Reggae Routes: The Story of Jamaican Music (Paperback)
After reading Reggae Rasta Revolution and The Rough Guide To Reggae, I was very hesitant to buy this book. I was afraid it would be prove to be another waste of money. But thank God I ponied up the dough. Reggae Routes is not only indisputably the best book ever written on reggae (And I have read them all or at least all I could find!), it is simply an excellent book period and a must read for anyone interested in reggae, Jamaica, world music or popular music. It is beautifully written in a manner that defies you to put it down and is as comprehensive as it is possible to be. (I always wondered where Nyabinghi came from.) The pictures are wonderful and it is a very well designed book. I agree with 90% of the top 100. Nice to see it was all done in Jamaica by Jamaicans, just like the best reggae. I would wholeheartedly advise anyone reading this to immediately click on 'ADD TO SHOPPING CART' and order as many copies as you have friends who like reggae.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
