Red
1981
Sly Dunbar plays an electronic drum on it, which almost nobody in reggae was doing, and it gives the whole record its metallic snap.
★ 3.9
The Albums canon
Sourced and spun.
Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Clandestino
1998
Chao recorded it on a portable eight-track while moving around Latin America, singing in five languages about people crossing borders without papers.
★ 4.0
Original Soundtrack (The Harder They Come)
1973
Jimmy Cliff starred in the film as well as singing on it, and for years this was the only reggae record most Americans owned.
★ 6.0
Natty Dread
1974
The first record after Tosh and Bunny left, with three women, one of them Marley's wife, singing behind him from then on.
★ 6.4
Legend
1984
Put together three years after Marley died, and it has essentially never left the American catalogue charts in the forty years since.
★ 6.4
Catch a Fire
1973
Island Records boss Chris Blackwell added rock guitar and keyboards to make it travel, and packaged it in a sleeve shaped like a Zippo lighter.
★ 7.0
Exodus
1977
Marley made it in London after being shot at home in Jamaica, and side two is nothing but songs people still sing at weddings.
★ 7.6