Belated Album Review: Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band (Also, why I don't like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)

No, this isn't a really really belated review of a Beatles album that I spelled the name of wrong. The album I'm reviewing was released a few months ago this year. It was produced by the Easy Star All Stars, who are known for other reggae cover albums, such as Dub Side of the Moon and Radiodread. I haven't listened to Dub Side of the Moon (a reggae version of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon) very much, but I own Radiodread (a reggae version of Radiohead's OK Computer), and to be honest I don't like it very much. The Toots & The Maytals cover of "Let Down" is absolutely incredible, better than the original in my opinion, but the rest of the album kind of falls flat, especially by comparison. To be fair, this is partly a matter of personal taste for me; I love old-school reggae that doesn't have lots of production, and most of the album, notably excluding "Let Down," is really production heavy. But I also think that there are other issues as well; for one thing, Radiohead's music doesn't always work as reggae. It was a noble effort for the All Stars to tackle the 3/4 time "Subterrainian Homesick Alien" using a genre that is almost always in 4/4 time, but the end result shows why reggae is almost always 4/4. It's kind of boring (well, so is the original song), and it just kind of sounds like, well, a reggae band trying to play a Radiohead song, rather than a reggae band making a Radiohead song completely their own. 

Anyway, tribute albums usually suck, so while I didn't particularly like Radiodread, I wasn't disappointed by it, since I didn't expect to like it in the first place. For that reason, I was pleasantly surprised by Lonely Hearts Dub Band. 

Now, just for a little background information, I don't like the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles. I think it's one of the most overrated albums of all time, mainly because it's all over the fucking place musically. It's a concept album with no concept. The band starts out by introducing themselves as an imaginary band, which is a pretty cool idea, but then they just drop acid around track 3 and forget about the concept entirely. By the middle of the album they start introducing a magical kite and bastardizing Indian music and we have absolutely no idea what the fuck is going on. I've heard tons of hippie assholes tell me that the album's so cohesive, which is bullshit. We have a sitar song next to an old-timey woodwind ensemble one. How the fuck is that cohesive? I've also seriously heard people say "man, Sgt. Pepper is so great! It's got all the classics on it, like Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane." (Those songs are from Magical Mystery Tour, which is my favorite Beatles album, because it's cohesive and has all the classics on it.) And don't even give me that bullshit about how it's better when you're stoned, because all music is better when you're stoned. Why do you think dub music has an audience? Using that argument is like saying "Don't say McDonald's tastes bad, it's better when you're hungry." Of course Sgt. Pepper sounds incredible stoned, but an album that's actually good will sound even better! Sgt. Pepper is also proof that people don't necessarily make better music when they're on drugs. Frank Zappa did way cooler shit in the 60s, and he never smoked weed in his life. If Frank Zappa had done drugs, he probably wouldn't have recorded Uncle Meat and would have wrote something shitty like "Good Morning Good Morning" instead.

Anyway, I don't like the Sgt. Pepper album. If you want to read more about why it sucks, read this fantastic piece by Jim DeRogatis. Also, just to clarify, some bands, particularly They Might Be Giants, have made exquisite albums that have absolutely no musical consistency. They're a band who knows how to pull that off. The Beatles never were. That's why no one ever listens to the white album all the way through, and if you say that you don't skip "Revolution 9" you're a pretentious asshole.

Anyway, the fact that I don't like Sgt. Pepper probably made me like the reggae version of it way more, even though I love OK Computer and didn't really like its reggae version, which is strange, but also kind of makes sense. Since I love OK Computer, I didn't really want anyone messing with its songs (except of course for Toots & The Maytals. They can mess with any song they want as far as I'm concerned. Everything they touch turns to gold). On the flipside, I don't like Sgt. Pepper, so I like the fact that someone is actually making it's songs good. Now to be fair, the original album does have a lot of good songs on it... oh, wait, I checked the track listing, and it actually only has one really good song on it: "A Day In The Life," which, despite how I feel about the album, is my favorite Beatles song ("Eleanor Rigby" and "Happiness is a Warm Gun" round out my top 3. I guess I like all the morbid, depressing Beatles songs). But still, not all of the songs on the album are bad. Sure, "Within You Without You" goes on for way too long and is just George trying to recreate "Norwegian Wood" and "Love You To," the Beatles were on way too much acid when they wrote "For The Benefit of Mr. Kite," and "Good Morning Good Morning" just sounds like a cartoon exploding, but all of the other songs on the album are solid and just suffer from this lack of consistency. But the great thing is that Lonely Hearts Dub Band solves this easily. It's impossible for a reggae album to suffer from a lack of consistency. The only thing a reggae album can suffer from is too much consistency.

LHDB really shines because it makes the entire album consistent and really allows the actual songs to shine, rather than get covered up by bizarre, self-indulgent production. The other thing that's great about it is that it has fucking amazing guest artists on it. The track listing reads like a list of reggae all stars. We have The Mighty Diamonds, Max Romeo, Ranking Roger, Steel Pulse, U-Roy... shit, everyone on this album is fucking incredible. So now it's time for the song by song review process! (BTW, you can listen to the whole album on youtube, so I'll be providing links to each song.)

The first song essentially serves the same purpose as it does on the original album: just an introduction. It's not particularly exciting, but then again, this song never was the high point of the original album either (that might be another reason why the original suffers: it has a weak opener). The next track, Luciano covering "With A Little Help From My Friends," is a million times better than anything Ringo has ever done, including drumming for the Beatles (ok, I admit that was a little too harsh). The original version of this song just kind of lumbers along and has no passion in it, but Luciano's version manages to be both upbeat and mellow, and has terrific vocals.

Next we have "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," which I will henceforth be abbreviating as "LSD." I've thought for a while that LSD would make a great reggae cover; I always imagined it starting out with just a sick descending bassline and some phenomenal reggae singer doing the first verse over it, and then you'd hear a pickup of high-pitched snare drums before the chorus, which would be upbeat and full of sound. This version pretty much starts exactly how I imagined it, but I think the drums come in way to early. Still, it's pretty cool. Frankie Paul is great, especially when he changes the lyrics a little to include a reference to the Ethiopian flag (cellophane flowers of red gold and green...). Still, I think the song should speed up a little more at the chorus. But that minor complaint doesn't keep this from being an awesome cover.

"Getting Better" by the Mighty Diamonds is truly phenomenal - old school reggae style performed by old-school reggae greats. It incorporates the jagged guitar line and tight harmonies from the original Beatles song perfectly. "Fixing a Hole" is the "Let Down" of this album. Originally an average song, it's saved by an insanely talented singer, in this case Max Romeo. It's also odd how some of the lyrics to this song resemble the lyrics of Max Romeo's own songs. Basically, this is another nearly perfect one.

Next, we have "She's Leaving Home," the one which I was most nervous about. How are they gonna take a harp song in 3/4 time and make it reggae? Kristy Rock's answer? Go the completely opposite direction: make it upbeat in 4/4 time with prominent horns. No depressing song has ever made me want to dance this much. This is one of the highlights of the album, just because of how daring the arrangers were. In fact, the original was one of the most daring ones on the album, so in a way the reggae cover is appropriate.

I was also worried about "For The Benefit of Mr. Kite," but this one has Ranking Roger on it, and he can do no wrong. Mostly your typical reggae fare, but it's Ranking Roger, and the parts where he toasts are awesome. Plus the fact that they were able to make this bizarre, strange song typical is impressive.

Next... what the fuck... it's Matisyahu. Doing "Within You Without You." I never thought I could hate anything so much. It's about as bad as I expected it to be, and it's appropriate that they gave the most pretentious song to the most pretentious singer. But this kind of interrupts all the good vibes that the album had before. I don't like the strings, I don't like the sitar, I don't like the song, I don't like the fact that it's 5 minutes long, I don't like Matisyahu. This one's skippable. In fact, this one is inconsistent with the rest of the album, which is what I hated about the original.

The other thing which makes this song suffer as a reggae song is that, as Jim DeRogatis points out, the original version has no rhythm. One of the defining features of reggae is its rhythm. To take a song with no rhythm and turn it into reggae is really challenging, and I wouldn't expect anyone to pull that off. Especially Matisyahu.

Ah, the next one makes me feel better! "When I'm 64" is such a cheery song, perfect for reggae. Somehow, the original was too cheesy, but this cover just makes me happy! It's got a sick beat, a sick bassline, a sick melody, and that trombone just takes me back to my high school skanking days. I didn't even expect this one to work so well as reggae, but I think this is a case of the cover being better than the original. My only complaint is that Sugar Minott had a great opportunity with the line "doing the garden, digging the weeds," and he didn't do anything with it. Still, I really wish I had had the idea to turn this song into reggae when I was in a ska band.

"Lovely Rita" is another song that was made to be turned into reggae. It's upbeat, it's happy, it's in 4/4 time. But I think Bunny Rugs could have done a better job with this one. It should be a little faster, the drums should be a little bit more high pitched, the vocals should be a little less airy... but the fact that he invites Rita to get high with him is pretty awesome, and so is the trombone solo, although I wish that part were longer. The song picks up when he starts toasting. 

Next we have "Good Morning Good Morning," which I would say is the worst song on the original album (although there are some other really bad ones). If anyone could save it, it's Steel Pulse, a fucking incredible reggae band. And they do save it. Steel Pulse are another band that are just always solid. Seriously, just listen to that song, or watch any video of them live. If you're looking to get into any reggae other than Bob Marley's Legend album, Handsworth Revolution by Steel Pulse is a really good place to start (I'd also recommend the Trojan box set Originals and the soundtrack to The Harder They Come). Anyway, this song rocks. Steel Pulse rocks. 

The next one's a reprise of the first track? Who cares?

Actually, it's pretty sick. Give it a listen.

Finally, we have "A Day In The Life." As I said before, this one is my favorite Beatles song. You might think that because of this I wouldn't want it to be covered, but in fact this is another one that I've always thought would work great as reggae. To be honest, this version doesn't work as well as I expected. But this one's really just a matter of personal taste. As I said before, I'm more of a fan of older reggae, and this one's a bit more dubby. I always imagined the reggae version of this song (which I always imagined being called "A Dub In The Life") consisting of a main part that sounds more like the bridge of this version, and more of a ska rhythm on the bridge. But this one's still good. I just didn't like it as much partly because of personal taste, and partly because I love the original (which I guess also falls under the category of personal taste). Still good though.

Anyway, LHDB is a solid, solid album with lots of high points and only a few low points which really aren't very low. This is in contrast to the original, which is so all over the place that all of the points on the album are too far away for us to see their location. No offense to all the hippies out there, but I like this one better than the original. And I don't think that's really an insult to the Beatles. I think it's a complement to their songwriting abilities that their songs can so easily be played in other genres. As I kind of implied before, Sgt. Pepper is really an album that got bogged down by self-indulgent production. Most of its songs are good; it's just that on the original album we're not really allowed to actually listen to the songs. All we can listen to is the bizarre, random shit that was put on top of them. LHDB allows us to listen to what was going on underneath the sitars, woodwinds, echoes, and animal noises. It makes the album consistent, which compensates for its biggest weakness.

And in case anyone replies by saying that I can't understand the impact the album had when it came out (which you really aren't allowed to say unless you were there at the time), I've already prepared my response: Sgt. Pepper doesn't sound good now. It sounds like a relic of a time when people thought that bombarding our senses with absolutely no subtlety was a good idea. A classic album should be timeless. Sgt. Pepper isn't. It just sounds like it was made by a bunch of hippies with too much money.

(BTW thank you for reading the whole thing if you made it this far. I'm aware that this post was way too long).