Absolutely NOT The Best Albums of 2010

Now is that wonderful and magical time of the year where we can all begin to have arguments on what was the best album of the year. We can all sing the beautiful songs of all of the beautiful artists and have a great time and relive the very first time we heard them and just how wonderful it all is. Unfortunately on this list, however, you’ll find no such thing. On the completely opposite end of those lovely moments are moments like these - Moments which smell bad for one reason or another. Thankfully, for as strong as the year has been, we haven’t had as many bad album releases as most years in recent memory, but we definitely have a few. Thus, I submit for your total disapproval a list containing NOT the Best Reggae Albums of 2010.

{Note: Albums are in no specific order}
{Note 2: Albums vary from bad-awful, to disappointing, to just completely boring}

“Pon Di Gaza 2.0” by Vybz Kartel [Tad’s Records]

I can imagine the effect that a “new double album by Vybz Kartel with FORTY-SIX tracks” may’ve had on me just a few years back, but in 2010 things have CHANGED! I don’t care if I’m the only one who hears it, but with very few exceptions (which have, thankfully, began to roll in more often these days), the Vybz Kartel of today is a BORE when compared to the thrilling version of just a few years ago and if last year’s album wasn’t the greatest example of that, then certainly that most unfortunate of distinctions goes to ”Pon Di Gaza 2.0”, which was just . . . Wrong! It wasn’t a total lost (with that many tracks, definitely there’s bound to be something good within, but the bad outweighed the good by far.

“Ark A Law” by Midnite [Higher Bound Productions]

Looking back on it, Midnite’s "What Makes A King” album is one which has grown on me quite a bit since its release and I think that now it should probably be regarded as one of ‘their’ finer outings in recent years. So that was the good album of the year or the ‘group’ . . . Oh and there was also ”Ark A Law” which was - Yeah. It wasn’t so good. Here’s the thing about Vaughn Benjamin/Midnite: While I may not be very inclined to call any of their output ‘bad’, when it isn’t precise and masterfully done work, it is so cryptically strange that, even for me as someone who LOVES to analyze music, it becomes ridiculously tedious work and not an enjoyable experience. Specifically in the case of ”Ark A Law”, what happened was not only that, but the compositions given to Benjamin and the effects on his vocals were just really Off. It often sounded like he was recording through a phone (can you imagine that you pick up a phone and it’s Vaughn Benjamin singing ‘Rejoyce’) or the vocals were doubled and after all of that it really ruined this album for me.

“Uncrowned” by Teflon [Black Ice/Yard A Love]

Do you remember this one? Neither do I. The ‘promotion’ behind this one (if you want to call it that) was actually much MUCH worse than the album itself. I mean, there was literally NO hype behind it at all and I’d even challenge you to find anything even remotely ‘healthy’ written on it besides my review (and should you find it on United Reggae, it won’t count, because I wrote that too). It wasn’t so much that ”Uncrowned” was a bad album, although it’s clearly not even as good as the 3.25/5 that I gave it (and furthermore, I haven’t really enjoyed the output of Teflon in 2010 outside of it either, but the problem here was that it really lacked a focus. It’s weird because if you look back at his Teflon’s first album, ”Motherless Child”, the only real complaint that can be had there, in my opinion, was that the album was too one-dimensional - Focusing on the Roots side, when the artist is so multi-faceted - Well when that ability is allowed to be shown, the results are FAR less than great and in retrospect one of the worst albums from a relatively big named artist in 2010.

“Infallible” by Tanya Stephens

Well, I suppose, as they say - ‘You get what you pay for’. Had Tanya Stephens not spent the finest portion of the early 2000’s absolutely WOWING her fans with both "Gangsta Blues” and "Rebelution”, then I guess expectations wouldn’t have been too high at all for whatever was to come next and who knows, we may’ve not paid any attention at all. Well she did do that and we did pay attention to her next release, ”Infallible" which, most shockingly was released completely free of charge as Stephens apparently went forth to attempt to make some big statement on the industry and how its artists are treated - Which hopefully and honestly did resonate within the ‘powers that be’. HOWEVER, the actual music was SO WELL BELOW that very high standard that she’d set that it almost seemed as if the decision to go the ‘free route’ wasn’t entirely her own - Quality control!

“Keep Ya Head Up” by Jah Mason [Rastar Records]

Speaking of controlling quality. "Keep Ya Head Up” by Jah Mason is an album which had, essentially, been postponed two years (and as of this writing it still hadn’t been OFFICIALLY released so it remains to be seen) before it began to leak out in 2010 and when you actually listened to it, you kind of saw maybe why. It was really really really really bad. It shouldn’t have been a surprise either as, just last year, the same label, Rastar gave us the single worst Lutan Fyah album ever, ”African Be Proud”, but it seemed that things would have been different with the Mason. The problem with that album was the Hip-Hop which clashed with Fyah’s very straight forward style of chanting. Jah Mason, on the other hand is, at least seemingly more equipped to deal with the more type of versatile riddims - “SEEMINGLY”. He wasn’t. The album was highlighted by complete and utter mediocrity, recycled lyrics and just bad vibes. Easily Jah Mason’s worst album to date.

The DNA Riddim [TJ Records]

I’ll make this one quick because it has a very specific point. The TJ Records’ DNA Riddim is probably one of the finest Dancehall riddims of the year and you can definitely hear the strength and the main attraction here on the riddim’s album as well. So what’s the problem??? Well, for me the album has three really big highlights: One is ‘Style’ by Spragga Benz and then the other two are ‘Jacket’ and ‘Back Broad’ by Assassin and Spice, respectively. As I sat down to FINALLY write the review for it a week ago, I just so happened to notice that BOTH of the latter two tunes are nowhere to be found on the riddim’s album (despite being on the cover). Yes - Someone really really really fucked up.

“Isaacs Meets Isaac” by Gregory Isaacs & King Isaac [King Isaac]

Have you ever heard something really bad? I mean really bad??? The feeling that it tends to bring is that it is SO bad that it must be you. Something cannot possibly be THIS bad. In listening to ”Isaacs Meets Isaac” from the legendary Gregory Isaacs and Afrikan born ‘vocalist’ King Isaac, I experienced that feeling a few times throughout. The main problem here was a simple one: Neither of the two singers were very good at the time. I’ve maintained for years (and I wasn’t the only one) that Gregory Isaacs vocals had greatly diminished in his later days and while he remained an absolute JOY up to the very end, I think that this had been the case for quite a few years by the time of his unfortunate death earlier this year. And for King Isaac, he’s just completely unimpressive and the results were just that. The music itself was decent, but really poor vocals spoiled whatever this one had going for it.

“Revelation” by Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry [Megawave Records]

. . . If you make Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry the main vocalist of your project, you have already made a mistake. Even at his best, as a vocalist, he was pretty bad and now, well into his 70‘s, clearly things have only worsened. Of course, that’s less of a problem when the music is brilliant, which is simply what Perry does, but ”Revelation” didn’t even have that. The music here was just a bit less than average and when you take that and combine with awful vocals and equally awful lyrics, the results are what??? A Grammy nominated album.

And clearly the worse album 2010.