Legend (album)

Legend is a greatest hits - album of Jamaican reggae band Bob Marley and the Wailers . It has been almost three years after Bob Marley's death May 8, 1984 by Iceland Records as the record released. The compilation includes ten of the eleven hits that were in the UK Top 40 when the album was first released , as well as three songs that Marley recorded with the original cast of the Wailers in 1972, and the Redemption song released on the album Uprising .

Track list

Is This Love - 3:52
No Woman, No Cry - 7:07
Could You Be Loved? - 3:55
Three Little Birds - 3:00
Buffalo Soldier - 4:17
Get Up, Stand Up - 3:16
Stir It Up - 5:33
One Love / People Get Ready - 2:51
I Shot The Sheriff - 4:41
Waiting In Vain - 4:15
Redemption Song - 3:49
Satisfy My Soul - 4:31
Exodus - 7:35
Jammin ' - 3:31

Further editions

A music cassette edition in 1984 contained two additional songs with Easy Skanking and Punky Reggae Party , Marley's eleventh British Top 40 hit. In 1990 a new CD was released on Marley's Jamaican label Tuff Gong, which, in contrast to the original version, which contained the shortened single versions of the title, offered several titles ( No Woman, No Cry , Exodus ) in longer album versions.

2002 remastered (Digitally Remastered)

In 2002 a digitally remastered new edition of the album was released with the two bonus titles of the cassette edition:

Is This Love
No Woman No Cry
Could You Be Loved?
Three Little Birds
Buffalo Soldier
Get up, stand up
Stir it up
Easy skanking
One Love / People Get Ready
I shot the sheriff
Waiting in Vain
Redemption song
Satisfy my soul
Exodus
Jamming
Punky reggae party

This new edition also appeared in a so-called deluxe edition with an additional CD:

One Love / People Get Ready (Extended version)
Waiting in Vain (Remix)
Jamming (Remix)
Three Little Birds / Three Little Birds (Dub version)
Could You Be Loved (Remix)
No Woman No Cry (Remix)
Coming in from the Cold (Remix)
Buffalo Soldier (Remix)
Jamming (Remix)
Waiting in Vain (Remix)
Exodus (Remix)
Lively up Yourself (Remix)
One Love / People Get Ready (Dub version)

reception

Commercial win

Legend is the best-selling reggae album of all time. When it was released, Legend was on the Billboard Top Pop Catalog for 17 consecutive weeks, setting a new record for re-releases. It was still on the Billboard charts in 2000. The album was awarded several platinum records and in the USA even a diamond record . In the week of September 20, 2014, the album rose from number 100 to number 5 in the US album charts as a result of a discount campaign on Google Play .

country	year	Award	Sound carrier
Germany	1992	platinum	500,000
Canada	1989	2 × platinum	200,000
New Zealand		18 × platinum	300,000
UK	1994	6 × platinum	2,826,912
United States	1999	Diamond (10.00)	13,470,000

Critical appraisal

Legend sums up the greatest achievements of Bob Marley and the Wailers. Due to the principle, the rather Ska-influenced early work is hardly taken into account. Marley's role as a political commentator is only represented by a few songs like Redemption Song or One Love / People Get Ready . The album is considered a good introduction to Marley's overall oeuvre.

Legend is ranked 46th in the Rolling Stone music magazine's list of the 500 best albums of all time . The album is described as “ a comprehensive, single-disc example of the universal soul he brought to Jamaican rhythm and Rastafarian spirituality ” ( Rolling Stone , German: “a comprehensive, single-disc example of the universal soul that he gave the Jamaican Rhythm and spirituality brought to the Rastafari ”). In a 2006 list of the 100 best albums of all time published by Time magazine, the album took 41st place. It was stated that Marley had made good albums with Burnin ' and Natty Dread , but above all this posthumous compilation captured the entire Marley.

According to All Music Guide , Legend is “ The classic Marley album, the one that any fair-weather reggae fan owns ” ( Stephen Thomas Erlewine , German: “the classic Marley album, the one that every fair-weather reggae fan owns ”) . The album shows that " the beauty and simplicity of Marley's music was as important as his message " ( Stephen Thomas Erlewine , German: "the beauty and simplicity of Marley's music was just as important as its message"). cdstarts.de gives the album 10/10 points and declares that Legend "contains the best songs by Bob Marley in good quality" ( Yannick Dittmer ). It is particularly "suitable for people who are not particularly familiar with reggae" ( Yannick Dittmer ).

Pop culture references

There are numerous references to Bob Marley in the film I Am Legend . In one scene of of obsolete Will Smith main character played in his opinion best album of all time out, which is not mentioned by name, but by the simultaneous playing Stir it up it becomes clear that it is referring to the movie title to Marley's Legend is . With Three Little Birds , I Shot The Sheriff and Redemption Song , the film features a total of four songs from this album.