Bob Marley and the Wailers
One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers
Island
I’ll be fairly clinical about this, as Island has recently reissued a lot of Marley’s catalog (which will get separate attention soon), and there’s also the previous existence of a perfectly good “best of” collection, 1984’s Legend. Really, when it comes to owning a Bob Marley collection (something I believe everyone should do), it’s going to come down to this and Legend, so let’s look at the key differences.
Legend contains a different version of “Redemption Song” (One Love has a “band version”). It also features “Satisfy My Soul,” which is absent from the new one. One Love, on the other hand features seven tracks not on Legend, “Lively Up Yourself,” “Roots, Rock, Reggae,” “Turn Your Lights Down Low,” “Sun Is Shining,” “So Much Trouble in the World,” “Iron Lion Zion,” and “I Know a Place.” While it’s sometimes difficult for me to get used to the different sequencing here (Legend has worn its ways into my ear like a river carves its path), One Love has its winning points, mainly the extra tracks. The loss of Marley’s extremely personal and charged “Redemption Song” is hardly compensated by the “band version” that replaced it.
Packaging is nice and artistic, but utterly devoid of useful information beyond the cold hard facts. It’s literally been a decade since I held an actual copy of Legend in my hands, so I don’t know if it fares any better in this department, but it’d be difficult to lose to this vapid collection of information. Come on, it’s Bob Friggin’ Marley. You should say a word or two.
Bottom line – one or the other, you really can’t lose.
Bob Marley Information: http://www.bobmarley.com
