It’s no mere hyperbole to say {that a} Legend was born in Might 1984. Island Data’ new compilation celebrating the recording legacy of Bob Marley & the Wailers, launched on Might 8, went straight to No.1 on the UK chart for the nineteenth.
Little did we all know that Legend would turn into one of many all-time bestselling compilations world wide by any artist. The retrospective was maybe the basic instance of a report that captured the zeitgeist. An unlimited worldwide, mainstream viewers knew concerning the nice reggae ambassadors, however maybe didn’t have them of their assortment. Thus Legend grew to become a defining assortment, even when sure media observers such because the NME discovered it a little bit too targeted on Marley and never sufficient on the Wailers.
‘The Marley that most people best remember’
“This, I suppose, is the Marley that most people best remember,” wrote Richard Cook dinner in his evaluate, “the grinning shaman of ‘Jamming’ and ‘Three Little Birds,’ the frank lover of ‘Waiting In Vain’ and ‘Is This Love,’ the pacific potentate of ‘Exodus.’ The popular Bob seemed to spend much of his time telling us that everything was gonna be all right, and it’s that side of Marley which holds sway here.”
File-buyers had no such reservations. The gathering dominated the British charts all the best way into mid-summer, with 12 consecutive weeks on the prime, eight extra within the prime ten and an unbroken chart run of 74 weeks, stretching to October 1985. It has often reappeared on the British countdown since, together with a 1991 revival that took it again to No.11, one other run within the Prime 20 in 1994, returns to the Prime 40 in 1999, 2003 and 2012, and every week within the Prime 10 in September 2014 by way of a price range marketing campaign.
Hearken to the uReggae playlist, that includes greater than 30 reggae greats.
By Might 2023, the album had spent a complete of 831 weeks within the UK Prime 75, and 1080 within the Prime 100, which quantities to properly over 20 years. It was licensed double platinum simply 9 days after it hit No.1 there, triple platinum in 1985, quadruple in 1991, quintuple in 1993 and six-times platinum in 1994. Worldwide, Legend is kind of merely some of the sturdy compilations there’s ever been, with international gross sales estimated at greater than 28 million.
The 2014 upswing for the album got here with the help of an enormous drop from a daily worth of round $9 to 99 cents by Google Play, the album soared from No.100 to No.5 on the Billboard 200 within the US. It thus grew to become the highest-charting album by Bob Marley within the reggae icon’s American chart historical past, outdoing the No.8 peak of 1976’s Rastaman Vibration. The anthology reached No.54 in its preliminary run on the Billboard chart. This can be a Legend that may by no means die.
