Smooth Reggae
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The polished, radio-friendly strain of romantic reggae aimed at the mainstream and adult-contemporary audience: clean, glossy production, mellow mid-tempo one-drop grooves, gentle horns and keyboards, and smooth, unforced lead vocals on love songs and easygoing covers. Rougher roots textures are sanded away in favour of accessibility and melody, the reggae rhythm intact but softened for pop radio. The mood is sunny, laid-back and comforting. Reggae at its most easy-listening and crossover-friendly.
History
Smooth reggae took shape as UK and Jamaican acts chased the pop charts in the late 1970s and 1980s: Birmingham's UB40 turned reggae covers like "Red Red Wine" into global smashes, Maxi Priest and Aswad scored slick lovers-pop hits, and Third World brought a soul-disco sheen to the rhythm. Bitty McLean's "It Keeps Rainin'" and a stream of reggae remakes kept the style on daytime radio into the 1990s. Smooth reggae widened the music's audience enormously, functioning as the genre's most commercial, mellow face and a gateway that led millions toward deeper reggae.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Red Red Wine(1983) — UB40SpotifyYouTube
- Wild World(1988) — Maxi PriestSpotifyYouTube
- It Keeps Rainin' (Tears from My Eyes)(1993) — Bitty McLeanSpotifyYouTube
- Don't Turn Around(1988) — AswadSpotifyYouTube
- Now That We Found Love(1978) — Third WorldSpotifyYouTube
- Close to You(1990) — Maxi PriestSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Steve Barrow & Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae (2004)
- Lloyd Bradley, Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital (2013)
- Dave Thompson, Reggae & Caribbean Music (2002)