Lovers Rock: The Soulful Sound of Romantic Reggae

An episode of Steve McQueen’s acclaimed BBC television series Small Axe stimulated renewed interest in lover’s rock, the Black British reggae subgenre that was largely based on songs of teenaged heartbreak, which impacted the pop charts in the late 70s and early 80s, influencing Sade, Culture Club and The Police in the process. This sprawling compilation, issued on triple-CD, double-LP and streaming, has plenty to savour but ultimately muddies the waters by including many Jamaican ballads that are hugely different in form and feel to the British bulk, interrupting the flow in shuffle-mode.

Outstanding moments include Janet Kay’s landmark ‘Silly Games’, Carroll Thompson’s ‘Hopelessly in Love’, Brown Sugar’s ‘I’m in Love With a Dreadlocks’ and Winston Reedy’s ‘Dim the Light’, but Dennis Brown’s up-tempo pop hit ‘Money in My Pocket’ and Freddie McGregor’s ‘When Push Comes to Shove’ feel somewhat out of place; yes, they are songs of romance, but the production is far fuller and the playing style totally different to that of the UK works, and McGregor’s song was made in a different era. Despite the undesirable sequencing and mixing of styles, songs like John Holt’s ‘Ghetto Queen’ and Ruddy Thomas’ take of LJ Reynolds’ ‘Key to the World’ still sound great, as does Marie Pierre’s ‘Walk Away’ and Louisa Mark’s rendition of Robert Parker’s ‘Caught You in a Lie’; you may need to lift your stylus, programme your CD player, or create your own streaming sequence in order to obtain the best results.