Dennis Brown - The Prophet Rides Again (1983)

By the early '80s it had become de rigueur for Jamaican artists to create albums boasting two distinctive sides, one romantically inclined, the other more cultural, with the music similarly divided between pop or lovers rock and roots. But no record had previously gone to the extremes of The Prophet Rides Again, which actually employed two entirely different sets of musicians. A&M had hoped that Dennis Brown would break into the international market with Foul Play, his debut for the label. But as enticing as that crossover set was, it failed to ignite the world's masses. And so it was decided instead to try to peddle the singer to the U.S. soul market, and Love Has Found Its Way did just that, mapping a path straight into the Top 40 and even produced a Top 50 hit single in the title track. However, it's chic sound alienated Brown's core base of roots fans abroad, and so redress had to be made. Side two of The Prophet was determined not just to win back the singer's old audience, but to make them swoon. Kicking off with the superb title track and ending with the warning of "Storms Are Raging," this half of the album swoops across the cultural realm. "Historical Places (Ethiopia)," a version of Brown's earlier hit "Sitting and Watching," and the evocative "Shashamane Living (Country Living)" were both inspired by the area in Ethiopia that Selassie had ceded to the Ethiopian World Federation for settlement of Western blacks, an area which Brown had recently visited. Taken in this context, the rich "This Love of Mine" is a sweet devotional number, veiled as a lovely romantic song. With the phenomenal backings laid down by the Professionals, producer Joe Gibbs' studio band, this entire side should have left reggae fans salivating. That's assuming the record was still in one piece after they had played the first side. For side one was a slick, glossy mammoth, "Too Hot" to handle. That song was disco-bound, "Out of the Funk" was a celebration of the genre, while "Jammin' My Way to Fame" was a thumping funker. "Save a Little Love for Me" was all sleek urban stylings, and its reference to having "to ride with the tide" suggests that perhaps the singer was wishing the tide would sweep him another direction. At least he was able to insert a thematic religious twist to the sugary and sophisticated "Wonders of the World." This side, performed to slick perfection by a group of U.S. sessionmen, is just what the black audiences of the day demanded, a sound so clean and glossy you could eat off it. Brown does his best, but even he can't inject any real soul into these shiny monsters. Can one artist be all things to all people? Bob Marley had managed just that, but he never sounded manufactured, even at his most crossover his stylings emanated from within. That was not the case here, and thus this would be Brown's last album for A&M and the end of his dreams of international stardom. For his fans, that end couldn't come a moment too soon. Prophet would have made a phenomenal EP though.