YMMV / Bob Marley

• All Animation Is Disney: The internet believes that all reggae music is by Bob Marley, even if it's miscredited to him. Similarly, some of the compilation albums featuring tracks with Peter Tosh or Bunny Wailer on vocals but don't denote this, making some people think it's Bob Marley. This was a berserk button for Bunny in particular.
• Archive Panic: He was very prolific in his 19 year career. From 1962-1970, he released dozens of singles and no albums, so you'll need a slew of different compilations to have everything from this period (specifically, Heartbeat and JAD have done the best job of this - if not entirely complete). Then you have the albums, several of which can be found in different mixes. Then, there's the enormous amount of unreleased material, from live shows, to leaked acoustic demo tapes, to rehearsals of never recorded material. Bob collectors are an obsessive bunch, but what gets officially released is thin on the ground. It doesn't help that much of the JAD stuff can't be found on streaming services anymore (as it was done due to a licensing deal with Universal, which expired), and that Bob's estate take little risks when it comes to archive releases, preferring remix albums or late-period live shows.
• Audience-Alienating Era: The attempts to record easy-listening/soul-influenced reggae to make it big in America with Johnny Nash's JAD label, of which there were two sessions in 1968 and one in 1972. These in fact, only produced two singles in the time they were made (1968's "Bend Down Low/"Mellow Mood" and 1972's "Reggae On Broadway/Oh Lord Got To Get There"), but many of the other tracks recorded at that time have since been released. The easy-listening remakes of previously recorded songs are decidedly limp, and the Jimmy Norman-composed songs the band performed are generally out of step with their style.
• Covered Up: "One Love (People Get Ready)" from Exodus is this of "People Get Ready" by The Impressions. Whilst "People Get Ready" is a relatively famous song in its own right, "One Love" is much more famous.
  • "My Cup", one of the most famous Lee Perry era tracks, is a cover of the obscure James Brown track "I've Got To Cry Cry Cry".
  • "African Herbsman", a reworking of "Indian Rope Man" by Richie Havens, is better known than the original in most places thanks to lending its title to a famous early 70s compilation on Trojan, as well as appearing on many of the cheap compilations that used to flood the market before Universal/Jad gained control of the material.
  • Wailers related, but actually sung by Bunny Wailer: "Dreamland" is a cover of a song called "My Dream Island" from 1962 by an obscure band called El Tempos. Somewhat egregiously, Bunny would credit himself as the writer of the song on every release from that point on. The original artist was not noted by reggae historians until the 1990s.
  • The 1968 Peter Tosh-sung track "The World Is Changing" (known erroneously on some releases as "You Can't Do That To Me") was written by Jimmy Norman and was released by the soul group The Coasters around the same time. The Wailers version was not released during their lifetime (it first emerged in the mid 80s) yet has become more famous than the version that did get released. In this period, though unrecorded, Tosh also encountered Norman's song "Soon Come" and took it for himself, changing the lyrics slightly.
  • This can generally be said for the many early 60s doo-wop and country songs the group covered in their Studio One days. It was common practice for Jamaican record producers to find obscure American songs to cover so they could have a quick hit without paying royalties. Only in 2021 did the Bob fandom become aware that his first single "Judge Not" is based on a 1960 track by Margie Bowes.
• Creator Worship: All reggae fans like Marley or at least discovered the genre thanks to him. Worldwide, and especially in the developing world, he is the biggest superstar of all time. From Asia, Latin America and Oceania to Africa, people listen to his messages. In his native Jamaica, he is literally seen as a Messianic Archetype among the Rastafarian movement.
• Dead Artists Are Better: Marley's fame is far more massive now than it was when he was alive, with generations of musicians considering him an influence and an idol.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • He was popular in France considerably before his mid 70s breakthrough, so many of his older recordings can be found there that can't be found in most places outside of Jamaica. France was even the first country where an attempt was made to collect all his 1967-1972 material, hence The Complete Wailers LPs have French liner notes (there are US CD versions which don't).
  • Marley is spectacularly popular in the Pacific island of New Caledonia. The same can be said about reggae in general. How popular? When one walks the streets of Nouméa, about one in four people is usually wearing Rastafarian colours and/or a Bob Marley T-shirt, and young people carry around transistor radios playing Bob Marley all the time. This appears to be identification with a fellow island culture, helped along by the fact that, as Melanesians, the native Kanaks are darker in skin-tone than most other peoples of the Pacific.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The use of "Babylon" as a derogatory term to refer to the police and government authorities.
  • The Marley fandom likes to use the phrase "Half the story has never been told" (a line from "Get Up Stand Up") every time a new piece of information comes up.
  • The group even spawned one in their lifetime with "Reggae is another bag" (a line from "Lively Up Yourself"), a phrase that can be used towards anyone who doesn't get the genre (particularly, western record execs).
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Some people who claim to be Bob Marley fans only seem to be this because it gives them an excuse to smoke marijuana while listening to his music. In fact, even people who don't listen to Marley or reggae for that matter seem to believe that it is basically only for stoners.
  • Some people misinterpret "No Woman, No Cry" as a Misogyny Song, thinking it means that without women there would be no reason to cry. A lot of people find this incredibly funny, but the last laugh is actually on them, because the song is simply about a man telling a woman not to cry, despite their misery.
• Misattributed Song: Every reggae song (and even some dancehall songs) in existence has probably been attributed to him (this is mostly a problem on YouTube and file-sharing sites).
• Misblamed: A number of fans seem to think that Chris Blackwell was the sole cause of the Wailers' breakup. In fact, Chris was the one who advised Bob *against* a solo career (which he had been attempting at CBS with Johnny Nash), bringing the rest of the Wailers along. It was only because Bunny and Peter disagreed with Bob's increasing plans for worldwide fame and distrust of Blackwell that they left the group (the backing band, including longtime members Aston and Carlton Barrett, stayed). Furthermore, Peter Tosh himself said as much, noting that The Wailers never 'broke up' as they were like brothers, and that he and Bunny just refused to be part of the Island contract. They still sporadically collaborated later on.
• Newer Than They Think: Although "One Love (People Get Ready)" was included on the 1977 album Exodus, it wasn't released as a single during Marley's lifetime. In fact, it was only released as a single in 1984, in order to promote the posthumous compilation Legend on which it appears. Yet it is always included alongside the "Exodus" singles on compilations, despite the fact that the average listener would not have heard of the song in 1977.
  • The 1972 Jamaican release of "Catch A Fire" was exactly the same as it was elsewhere, but rumours abounded for years that the versions released there had no overdubs. This was exacerbated by the 2002 Deluxe Edition of the album, which featured a bonus disc of a so-called "Original Jamaican Version", featuring two dropped tracks "High Tide Or Low Tide" and "All Day All Night". The truth is that the band had intended from the outset to include overdubs on the tracks, although they did release a handful of un-overdubbed versions on Tuff Gong singles in Jamaica during the process the album was being finished. The single versions, coupled with a few overdub-free alternate takes from the archive and the two outtakes, were compiled into a version of the album that never actually existed, and sold to fans as this mythical original version. Even the track order was decided in 2002 to purposefully make it different to the original, rather than being what the band necessarily intended. Some fans still do prefer this version of the album, and demand has led it being released on vinyl on more than one occasion, but it is a recent creation.
  • Four tracks from Lee Scratch Perry's archives are often erroneously grouped with earlier material. They are "Keep On Skanking" and "Turn Me Loose", both from 1974 (the former track uses the backing music of Leo Graham's "Doctor Demand", a then-recent recording), as well as "Natural Mystic" and "Rainbow Country", both from 1975. None of them were intended for release during Bob's lifetime and were essentially demos he cut with an idea of possibly having Lee "Scratch" Perry produce Rastaman Vibration (a period which also resulted in "Jah Live").
• Older Than They Think: Famously, "One Love" dates back to 1965 as a ska song, but what is lesser known is that the familiar 1977 reggae arrangement was first made as a one-off for the Original Wailers reuniting at the Dream Concert in 1975, originally part of a medley with Simmer Down. It escaped recording for Rastaman Vibration, but was included on Exodus, partly because with it as filler, Bob had enough tracks left over from the sessions to produce another album, Kaya.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: His 1976 song "War" is better remembered as the song Sinéad O'Connor was singing in a 1992 episode of Saturday Night Live when she suddenly tore a picture of Pope John Paul II and shouted "Fight the real enemy!", protesting child abuse by the Catholic Church, at the end.
• Refrain from Assuming: "Three Little Birds" is often called "Don't Worry About A Thing" or "Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright". The song's lyrics overall are about the optimistic lesson being sung by the titular birds in their melodies, but the birds themselves are only mentioned twice, while their message sticks more in the minds of listeners.
• Signature Song:
  • "One Love (People Get Ready)"
  • "No Woman No Cry" (in the version of Live!)
  • "I Shot The Sheriff"
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Compare the "Ay ya ya!" part of "Buffalo Soldier" to, of all things, the theme song for The Banana Splits.
  • "I'm Still Waiting" is extremely similar to Billy Stewart's "Sitting In The Park". This isn't a coincidence, as The Wailers loved the song (there exists a recording of Bob singing "Sitting In The Park" down the phone, and Bunny recorded a solo version.)
  • Although their 1970 album "The Best Of The Wailers" is regarded as full of excellent songs, it stands out for having a production style distinctive to the Beverley's label of that time - in particular that of Toots And The Maytals (who were the company's biggest act then), as well as contemporary releases by The Gaylads and Ken Boothe. This is because the label's in-house musicians played on all its releases. Bob, Peter and Bunny left the label before the album was released (it came out a year later) and soon after would team up with Aston and Carly Barrett of The Hippy Boys, whose bass and drum parts would be central to the writing of their songs from that point on until Bob's death over a decade later.
• Tough Act to Follow: Cracked's "5 Works of Art So Good, They Ruined Their Whole Genre" calls Exodus and Legend a tough act to follow in reggae.
• Unintentional Period Piece: It's easy to forget now, but "Zimbabwe" was written at a time when the country was still called Rhodesia, and to use the intended African name in a song was considered quite revolutionary. In fact, the song was so popular in then-Rhodesia that it was banned there. What really hammers the point home is that the single sleeve features Robert Mugabe, who was campaigning for the institution of majority rule. He was successful, but he turned the country into a dictatorship riddled with cronyism and incompetence, which he ruled for 40 years.
• Vindicated by History:
  • His Rastafari religion was ridiculed by numerous music journalists in the 1970s, but this wouldn't happen nowadays, as people have a far greater understanding of its importance to Jamaican culture.
  • He's more widely liked among African-American audiences today compared to when he started playing shows in America. Many American black people at the time were interested in soul and funk music and felt reggae was primitive in comparison. You wouldn't know this now, because he's had a profound influence on hip hop and soul music.

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