10. Big YouthDread Locks Dread
It’s difficult to pick one Big Youth album. I went through a massive reggae period at about the time of The Auteurs second album, which didn’t exactly help the mixing. I was trying to make it the one thing that it really obviously wasn’t. Then again with Black Box Recorder, part of the reason we ended up doing ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ was my obsession with all things reggae, and it was the most reggae-like thing we could do at the time. I got obsessed with buying up as much reggae as I could, and Big Youth is my absolute favourite. He’s clearly quite mad. I think Marley ripped him off massively and took this very sanitised version of his stuff. The weird thing about Dread Locks Dread is that it’s one of his bigger albums, and it is hard to pick one because they’re so untogether – one will be released in Jamaica only, you can’t tell what’s a compilation. A friend of mine who is staunchly anti-reggae was giving it the old ‘it all sounds the same’ to which the answer is ‘well some of it actually is the same, that’s the point of it’. It’s recycling, and Big Youth was a massive recycler. One of the things I love about this album is about the third or fourth track they get in a session harmonica player. Then the next track there’s more harmonica. By the end of the album there are three or four harmonica solos. They’ve obviously decided, we really like the harmonica. It’s got ‘Lightning Flash Weak Heart Drop’ which is one of my favourites. I could have picked any of his albums, none of them are particularly cohesive, but I think that’s the point. You’re never going to get Big Youth making Revolver or something like that, that was never the point.
