My No1 all time Album

I have made the decision on the greatest album I ever owned and it was no easy feat. In the end, it was between six and to pick one I revisited them in full.

Signing Off – UB4O

The Specials – The Specials

One Step Beyond –Madness

Outlandos d'Amour – The Police

Uprising - Bob Marley and the Wailers

True Democracy – Steel Pulse

It was great to listen to all the above music again I just wish I could have listen to them old style on vinyl. Old style would also see me lying on my bed blasting my chosen music off the walls until that banging at the door “Turn it down”. Maybe sitting on the wall outside my house window open, broadcasting to the world and my street. Out of the six it was great to listen to Outlandos’s d’Amour by The Police, it had been a while since I sat back and listened to the full album and reminded myself why I liked it.

 

So which one … Drum roll … Signing Off by UB40

 

A strange pick seeing it was the most overtly political album I ever listen to or owned. However, it hit a cord with me. I was one of Thatcher’s unemployed and had been politicize by her and the policies of the Tory party. Although by this time under the influence of the sound of reggae and ska, I felt something was missing and this was the band to bridge the gap.

 

The fact they were British, multiracial, and the lyrics on line with how I was feeling I feel they were my missing link at a time of the rise of the racist National Front and right wing politics. Coming from a multicultural area of Cardiff where black and white played together it was great to see a group playing music I liked were colour meant nothing. They appeared just has Two Tone had peaked another powerful movement in multiracial Britain.

Signing Off was an immediate success, reaching number 2 on the UK albums chart, and made UB40 the most popular reggae band in Britain. The first single ‘Food for Thought’ was a double A-side offering along with ‘King’ but it was ‘Food for Thought’ at got most of the airplay. It reached number 4 in the charts.

 

The album was full of politically concerned lyrics and widespread concerns about high unemployment, the policies of Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher, among the youth and adults feeding into the world of music. The cover artwork front and back struck a cord with the unemployed has it was a replica of the UB40 unemployment benefit attendance card from which the band took their name.

 

Considered by many fans and music critics to be UB40's best album, I can still remember listen to it for the first time featuring a mix of reggae and dub.

1. Tyler - written about the young black American Gary Tyler, who at the age of 17 was convicted by an all-white judge and jury of murdering a 13-year-old white boy, despite serious irregularities in the prosecution case and the lack of a murder weapon ever being found. UB40 intended "Tyler" to be their first single in the United States.
2. King - was about the late Martin Luther King, Jr., questioning the lost direction of the deceased leader's followers and the state of mourning of a nation after his death.
3. 12 Bar - Instrumentals track.
4. Burden of Shame - recounted the misdeeds performed in the name of British Imperialism.
5. Adella - Instrumentals track
6. I Think It's Going to Rain Today - song written by Randy Newman.
7. Food for Thought - was an attempt to publicise and condemn the famine in north Africa, comparing it with the Western over-indulgent celebration of Christmas, nearly five years before Band Aid brought the subject to widespread attention.
8. 25% - allegedly titled after the increase in wages demanded by the unions in the late 1970s to reflect a "living wage
9. Little by Little - highlighted the growing inequality between the rich and the poor.
10. 10 - Signing Off - Instrumentals track

The three tracks below came on a 12” single that came with the album

• Madam Medusa - was a vivid description of Margaret Thatcher's rise to power depicted in a grotesque style, featuring some of the band's most impassioned and bitter lyrics.
• Strange Fruit - song written by Lewis Allan
• Reefer Madness - Instrumentals track

Albums were limited by space back then and sometime the cassette tape would have extra tracks. That was the case with ‘Signing Off’ the three tracks that came on the 12" single were all on the cassette tape.