Prince Buster - Prince Buster - Fabulous Greatest Hits [Diamond Range] (2006)

Despite popular perceptions, Jamaica's first international superstar was not Bob Marley but an idiosyncratic music arranger named Prince Buster. Buster's pre- and post-ska musical stylings were so left of center (sometimes his rhythmic structures focus on the after-beat rather than the downbeat) that he's largely thought to have created his own reggae subgenre called blue beat (named after his label of the same name). Fabulous mixes some of Buster's well-known cuts with some not-so-famous ones that fly all over the musical map as far as soundscapes go. On the more obscure numbers like "Texas Hold-Up," the wicked horn section wails away over a shuffled syncopated beat, while on the bass-heavy "Freezing up Orange Street," the organ and saxophone are mixed to spar off against one another. Down-tempo ballads like "Julie" keep this collection balanced, while Buster's more ubiquitous up-tempo rhythm tracks like "Al Capone" and "Judge Dread" expose listeners to his more uncensored political positions regarding race and sex. While his hit "Ten Commandments" is included on this collection, the sexist manifesto it espouses would generate an even more heated set of responses from women than it garnered back then (the third commandment asks for the woman "to kiss and caress me, and honor and obey me, seven days a week and twice on Sundays"). In the end, those who think that Shaggy was the creative genius behind "Oh Carolina" (Buster actually produced the original version for the Folkes Brothers) need to purchase this collection and get schooled on this ska legend. --Dalton Higgins