Although ska had been quite popular in the UK, and Millie Small even managed to get a stateside hit with "My Boy Lollipop" in 1964, reggae wasn't very well known outside Jamaica until the first Jamaican-made film, Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come (1972), introduced it to midnight movie audiences in 1973. Although sweet-voiced Jimmy Cliff, who starred as singer-turned-robber Ivanhoe Martin in the film, was the dominant artist on the soundtrack, The Harder They Come: Original Soundtrack served as a handy and consistently superb various artists primer for listeners unfamiliar with reggae and ska.
Most of the genre's biggest early stars contribute classics. Toots and the Maytall, who also appear in the film, contribute "Pressure Drop" and the exhilarating "Sweet and Dandy", Desmond Dekker is represented by "007 Shanty Town", and The Melodians revise the psalm "Rivers of Babylon". There are also great tracks by Scotty and The Slickers. As for Cliff, he wears a different hat for each of his four tracks, going ska on "You Can Get It If You Really Want", rocking reggae on the title track, burning gospel on "Many Rivers to Cross", and pop soul on "Sitting in Limbo". Perhaps there wasn't much point in repeating the film's two key cuts, "The Harder They Come" and "You Can Get It", at the end of Island's soundtrack album, but that record still proved to be one of the very best of 1972 despite its surplus of oldies, and it still stands as one of the essential reggae albums. The old cliche really applies here: if you only own one reggae record, it must be The Harder They Come.
Now you can own it as a beautiful 50th anniversary edition from Island/UMe. The cover is absolutely gorgeous in a thick-stock, glossy gatefold sleeve with attached booklet. The graphics are as vivid as vivid gets and there are notes by Cliff, the late Henzell, Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, and The Clash's Paul Simonon, as well as a couple of lengthier essays, in the booklet. Bass is a touch too heavy, and the reprise of the "The Harder They Come" is a bit muddy, but the sound is clear and warm overall, and the inclusion of the rawer film version of the title song, pulled directly from the film's soundtrack (complete with fade in and cricket chirps), is a great bonus track.
