Bob Marley & The Wailers : Exodus - Hybrid SACD, Remastered

When Bob Marley died, he was one of the world's first global superstars – famous and celebrated from Europe to Africa to America. Some saw him not just as a reggae singer, but as a folk hero, a kind of freedom fighter. And to this day, his legacy is bigger than the music he made, wrote Pitchfork. In the 21st century, Bob Marley is a global cultural icon and the first Jamaican to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “Exodus” from 1977 – recorded in exile in London – became Marley's best-selling studio album. Time magazine named it the best LP of the 20th century. Other Marley albums offered bigger hits and still others better album tracks, but the balance Marley strikes on “Exodus” between politics, religion and romance – compare the urgent title track with the laid-back “Jamming” – shows a pop star at the height of his creative powers.

After the success of “Natty Dread” (1974) and “Rastaman Vibration” (1976), Bob Marley was not only the most successful musician in the world, but also one of the most powerful men in Jamaica. So powerful that in December 1976, a few days before a big free concert intended to defuse tensions ahead of the controversial Jamaican prime ministerial elections, he was shot by armed men in his home. After the failed assassination attempt, Marley and his band left Jamaica and settled in London for two years, where he recorded “Exodus”. While continuing to campaign against political corruption and for freedom and equality for the people of the Third World, his talent as a songwriter remained unbroken. “Exodus” contains more than just a few classics: the title track, of course, “Three Little Birds”, “Waiting In Vain” and “Turn Your Lights Down Low” – songs that defined Marley's talent for a sound that was both relaxed and incisive.

Analogue Productions now honors this masterful album with a sonically outstanding hybrid SACD, based on Ryan K. Smith's remastering of the original tapes at Sterling Sound, offering a previously unheard sound quality of this reggae classic.