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The Feelies - The Good Earth

Good-natured powerpop gets two-thumbs-up from MOJO messageboarder.

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UB40
Signing Off

(Graduate, 1980)

Man the barricades! For the Brum reggae institutions’ original and best.

UB40

For more than twenty years, UB40 have been known for a globe-straddling pop-reggae sound unlikely to alienate one’s grandmother, but it wasn’t always like this. Released as the 2-Tone boom was wilting and named for the dole claim form, Signing Off was a singular British take on Jamaican music, in some ways truer to the reggae source than 2-Tone but with a punky, multi-cultured sensibility of its own. Recorded in just three days by players still learning their instruments, it’s a superb balance of lightness and weight, as spry, skanking tunes rub up against militant lyrics made soulful by vocalist Ali Campbell (could it have hurt that his dad was Scottish folk lefty Ian Campbell?). The politics have aged remarkably well: Burden of Shame and Food For Thought address still-festering symptoms of the British disease, while wealth-redistribution inciter Little By Little and the 12-minute Maggie Thatcher horror dub Madame Medusa (“run for your life before she eats you alive!”) are nothing if not credit crunch-applicable. There are mellifluous instrumentals and a cover of Randy Newman’s I Think It’s Going To Rain Today for relief, but even so, two protest songs from the album crashed the singles chart. As did double-A side The Earth Dies Screaming/Dream A Lie – the former song once bringing the imminence of global nuclear death and the words “Half eaten meals lie rotting on the table, money clutched within a bony hand” to kids’ Saturday morning laff-riot Tiswas.

Ian Harrison

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 10:11 AM GMT 23/10/2008

Further Listening

UB40 – Present Arms/In Dub (DEP International, 1981)

Steel Pulse – Handsworth Revolution (Island, 1978)

The Specials – The Specials (Two-Tone, 1979)

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UB40

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  • A great album, when you think about it this band wrote and played these tracks while still learning to play all there instruments
    i think this is a credit to the eight guys who are self taught playing these fine tunes
    this was a big selling album here in scotland. I still own my copy which is still in mint condition. Now its 2008 and to bring out such a great album 28 years later, named "Twenty four seven" it is a great album. keep it up guys.

    Posted by D'kain'O at 10:17 AM GMT 03/11/2008 Report Abuse

    Reply to this post

  • A great album, when you think about it this band wrote and played these tracks while still learning to play all there instruments
    i think this is a credit to the eight guys who are self taught playing these fine tunes
    this was a big selling album here in scotland. I still own my copy which is still in mint condition. Now its 2008 and to bring out such a great album 28 years later, named "Twenty four seven" it is a great album. keep it up guys.

    Posted by D'kain'O at 10:17 AM GMT 03/11/2008 Report Abuse

    Reply to this post

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