R.E.M.’s 1987 album Document, their fifth, is an underrated entry in their discography. Underrated by me, at least. I rarely think of this album when I conjure up R.E.M.’s best work, but it is a consistently great collection.
Document started the band’s collaboration with producer Scott Litt, who would go on to produce their most successful albums, and it featured their first top ten hit in ‘The One I Love.’ It was also their first album to go platinum.
‘Takin’ It To the Streets’ is the title song from The Doobie Brothers’ 1976 album, their seventh studio release. This was the first album to feature Michael McDonald on lead vocals, and he also penned this track and a few others.
McDonald’s arrival marked a significant shift in the band’s sound, from straight-forward rock to a fusion of pop and soul. It’s the post-1976 material that pops up on my favorite Yacht Rock radio station.
Bob Marley and the Wailers released their first major-label album in 1973, when Catch a Fire was distributed by Island Records. Marley would release every subsequent album in his career through the Island label.
Catch a Fire was recorded in Jamaica, after Marley received an advance from producer Chris Blackwell to help him and the band — flat broke — travel back home after a tour of Great Britain. Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Waller recorded seven new tunes penned by Marley, plus rerecorded two Tosh songs previously released on other albums (‘400 Years,’ ‘Stop That Train’).
1971 saw the release of Bob Marley’s fourth studio album, The Best of the Wailers, and again, the title is confusing. This was not a greatest hits package, but a 10-song collection of all-new recordings.
And if it feels like a throwback compared to the two albums preceding it, that’s because the tracks were recorded a year and a half earlier, before Marley and the Wailers joined forces with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry.
The confusingly titled Soul Revolution Part II, released in 1971, was Bob Marley’s third release, and the second produced by Lee “Scratch” Perry. There is no Soul Revolution Part I, though a companion album to Part II was released stripped of vocals and featuring only the “dub” music tracks.
This album moves Marley and the Wailers closer to the traditional reggae sound I associate with them, and a little farther from the R&B and rocksteady sounds of their earlier work.
Meet Me In Montauk 