Reggaeville Review

http://www.reggaeville.com/nc/artist-details/artist/damian-marley/release/superheavy/ac/artistReleases/lead/review/update/1.html

Album Review: SuperHeavy - SuperHeavy
Valentin Zill
09/16/2011


A group consisting of Mick Jagger, Joss Stone(the British soul high flyer),Dave Stewart (the Eurythmics mastermind), A.R. Rahman (the Indian composer of the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack - he won two Oscars for that one) and no other than Damian 'GongZilla' Marley - when those five music heavyweights introduced their supergroup project earlier this year, music lovers all over the world held their breath. SuperHeavy, as the group is called, sounded like a good game of fantasy football (only with music, of course), imagined in the heads of some bored European music-loving millionaires living in Jamaica. What other mainstream-accepted music legend other than reggae-loving Mick Jagger would absolutely have wanted Damian Marley to be part of such a team? (Yeah, Keith Richards maybe.) Together, the members of SuperHeavy had won no less than eleven Grammys.The idea of creating this supergroup was actually born in the heads of Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart, thus two rich European music legends with homes in Jamaica. Their aim was to combine as many different musical backgrounds and genres as possible in this project. Why they wanted Jamaican influences? “We’d always wanted a Jamaican musician because Mick and I are crazy about Jamaica and Jamaican music”, explains Stewart. Damian was a great choice. His last album Distant Relatives was already a perfect blend of genres, and he brought his stunning, grooving riddim section, including Shiah Coore on bass, the son of Third World‘s Cat Coore. SuperHeavy was a great idea, I thought, and figured that with the tremendous airplay their music was surely going to get worldwide, maybe it could help to have mainstream media talking about reggae music again and getting people into reggae music that did not know any more reggae than Bob Marley‘s No Woman, No Cry and UB40‘s version of Kingston Town. To become a success in that regard, they would have to solve two key issues. First of all, how much reggae would there be in their sound? Secondly, there is one major pitfall for supergroups: with each participating superstar having a bigger ego than the other, recording is rarely easy and the outcome usually does not meet intial expectations, as the emphasis is on giving everyone his time to shine instead of really creating something together.So how turned out SuperHeavy‘s first album? Let me say this first: they evidently managed to work together instead of against each other. SuperHeavy sounds like a modern, highly innovative, yet experienced and exceptionally well-concerted band. A huge surprise if you consider their very different musical backgrounds! Every genre one of SuperHeavy‘s members is familiar with is represented in the recording, to varying degrees. Reggae is a main ingredient. While most tunes do not have an offbeat, the basslines and the beat often cry reggae. Another main ingredient is bluesy rock music. It is just impossible to ever forget here that the Rolling Stone‘s lead singer initiated the project. Mick employs the very singing style he got famous for, while Damian really adds a nice Jamaican topping. The most interesting spice added comes from A.R. Rahman. If you are not into more recent music from India and Arabic countries, you might have no idea how well these influences can go together with African and European styles. You certainly do not have to be a fan of Arabic-Indian harmonies to appreciate his contributions. Rahman also sings lead in Satyameva Jayathe and Mahiya (only on the deluxe edition). Joss Stone adds another nice, souly touch on vocals. Too many cooks spoil the broth, so they say - in this case, the exceptional but very different voices of the four singers complement one another very well. Same for the music - all those genres in a single album mean that the sound is far from being minimalistic, yet not a single tune sounds overloaded or constrained. SuperHeavy are miracle workers, trust me.The deluxe version of SuperHeavy contains 16 tracks, the standard one 12. There is not a single letdown here. For Reggaeville.com readers, the most interesting tunes are certainly Satyameva Jayathe, Beautiful People, I Don‘t Mind and the ska-infused Common Ground.Beautiful People is a good example for the uplifting, positive lyrics found on this unique album. Not only the exceptionally gifted lyricist GongZilla shines in that matter, everyone does. In better western record stores, you always find music sold as world music, a label to categorize whatever music does not fit into existing categories. What SuperHeavyhave achieved with their first album is the creation of true world music. Music that sounds in a way familiar to anyone in Jamaica, in the UK, the US, in India or wherever, while still offering many exciting, “new” elements to discover. This album is mandatory for any music lover, especially for those already fully globalized. It easily has the potential to draw people into our favorite genre. And it will definitely earn those music heavyweights some more Grammys.

Nice! Thanks Edy

It was really difficult to extract that text from there because copy/paste or Cltr C/Cltr V doesn't work on that site. But I think it's a intelligent review ,so I'm glad to put it here.

Am I spotting a trend here? Slagged off by the British press but well received elsewhere!

I think we may have been here before!

bryan1 wrote:Am I spotting a trend here? Slagged off by the British press but well received elsewhere!

Except Germany maybe. That's one of the biggest crap I've ever read. Bigger than what someone said on an obscure music blog: " I can"t Take It No More is a good song for suporting the rioters".

Fantastic review!! Thanks Edy I love the fact that they believe its a Grammy award winning album!!