which greensleeves riddim albums should I get first?

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they all look so great! & there's thirty-five of them! which are the highlights? are Bollywood, Diwali or Hard Drive any good?

― Ess Kay (esskay), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Hard Drive Part 1 is the only one I have. It's good. It's a bit exhausting as you might expect.

What you should do is buy a couple of the recent Greensleeves Samplers and work out which riddims you like best from those.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Diwali is absolutely the riddim to have - Bollywood's OK, Bad Kalic is corkingly good and Masterpiece, the new Lenky riddim (he also did Diwali) is pretty special - on this, each artist works with a different cut of the riddim, so it's pretty varied for one of these albums... I'd say get Diwali regardless, then follow the above advice re the comps for any others you might want...

― Dave Stelfox, Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Also there's 36 of them now. Knockout is the latest one.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I've heard the most of Diwali so far ("Sufferer", "Galang Gal" & "Elephant Message" all of which are k-rad); I like the idea of Bollywood though (being a huge "Addictive"/"React" fan, sigh). Beat Merchants have a reasonably-priced copy of Greensleeves Sampler 23 - aren't they due for a new one? - but the idea of riddim albums is compelling in, the, uh, h4rdc0r3 nature of the singlemindedness or etc. & yeah, the riddims have such great names! Martial Arts! Mad Ants!

― Ess Kay (esskay), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, it's been just over a year since 23 came out. I check the racks every week :)

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:35 (twenty-three years ago)

How fucking great is Lenky?

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 19 March 2003 23:21 (twenty-three years ago)

are these what i think they are? would this be like a hip hop album w/12 tracks, each w/a different mc, but all rapping over the same sample?

― JasonD (JasonD), Thursday, 20 March 2003 07:38 (twenty-three years ago)

that's pretty much it, JasonD, except it's 19-22 tracks, not 12

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 20 March 2003 08:02 (twenty-three years ago)

do they fuck w/the beat at all? drop parts, add other instruments, add effects? do the mcs (or is it djs?) sing completely different melodies or do they borrow some pieces from other songs?

this does sound really tedious.

― JasonD (JasonD), Thursday, 20 March 2003 08:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah there are sometimes effects and add-ons and the MCs do all pretty much use different melodies. There's a lot of variety. The best way to hear different MCs ride a riddim is mixed, though, the riddim albums themselves can get a bit unrelenting. I think they're a DJ tool more than anything.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 20 March 2003 08:16 (twenty-three years ago)

isn't the diwali riddim on sean paul's "get busy" (with much added music) and that wayne wonder song?

― your null fame (yournullfame), Thursday, 20 March 2003 09:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Anyone have an opinion/knowledge of VP Records' Riddim Driven series? How do they compare to these?

― JS Williams (js williams), Thursday, 20 March 2003 13:27 (twenty-three years ago)

as for the tedium of riddim albums---of course they're tedious...
riddim albums aren't things that you throw on and listen to...dancehall is music that is single based. this thread, and, it seems, most threads about dancehall/reggae on ilm, seem to focus on albums. with dancehall its ALL ABOUT THE SINGLES. sure, there's 22 versions of one riddim on a riddim album...if you follow dancehall, however, you probably already have all the good ones on 45 and you've spent careful hours making tapes of your favourites. i'd only buy a riddim album if i couldn't find a few versions i wanted...

it's also difficult to say "the riddim driven series is good." i happen to like some of the riddims available in that series...just friends, engine 54, mr. brown, and giddeon war (the fabulous tune on this one is wicked--"give thanks and praise."

instead of asking which greensleeves riddim albums should you get first, why not ask which tunes are big? go down to your local reggae store and ask the dudes who hangout there day and night...if you aren't in close proximity to such a place, check out soundquake.com or oj36.com and listen to the sound samples...decide which tunes you like and then download or order them. if you find that you really get a kick out of a specfic riddim, then by all means purchase the album.

big tings a gwaan in dancehall, seen? dem release nuff singles each week...

― cybele, Thursday, 20 March 2003 14:12 (twenty-three years ago)

oh, and yup that sean paul tune is on the diwali and so is wayne wonder's "no letting go." i really like the wayne wonder, but bounty killer's "sufferer" remains the nicest!

― cybele, Thursday, 20 March 2003 14:15 (twenty-three years ago)

What's the point of so many artists using the same riddim?

It can't be there's a shortage of good beats or backing musicians out there? Do dancehall clubs play them all back to back to create a house-like continuum of one riddim?

Why do this?

― phil jones (interstar), Thursday, 20 March 2003 20:25 (twenty-three years ago)

your local reggae store

Why do you taunt me so?

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 20 March 2003 20:27 (twenty-three years ago)

uh cybele if you can tell me about the big reggae supermarkets JUST NORTH OF ANTARTICA it would be a big help but sadly I don't have that option, & only Greensleeves seems to have the international reach to be not hideously expensive to import.

(sorry if I sound waspish but living at the periphery yet being able to read about the new exciting whatevah the kidz are into via the interweb is v.frustrating - I've barely heard any current UK MC garage stuff despite desperately wanting to; of course I'm a fuxx0ring tourist. But I can tell you what shit's floated to the surface on the stagnant waters of the dead c if you like).

― Ess Kay (esskay), Thursday, 20 March 2003 22:05 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll go to my local reggae store as soon as I get back from my local whale blubber shop < /sarcasm>

[nb I live in NYC and actually have access to reggae shops, but really Cybele GIVE US A BREAK]

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 20 March 2003 22:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I actually find the one riddim album I have - Bollywood - to be about as exhausting as, say, an Elephant Man album, but no more. The changes in toasting style and choruses adds as much variety to the repetitive arrangements as the changes in arrangements add to the repetitive toasting... if ya get me.

I enjoy that Bollywood album a lot BTW, though on the strength of "Get Busy" I suspect I'd love the Diwali album even more.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 21 March 2003 04:03 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, i was going to say: can one riddim be any more exhausting than a night of real hard, mininal techno, trance, or house? in many ways, the one riddim album has even more variety than any of those options since the MCs provide a broader range of up/down, in/out, loud/soft, whatevah. certainly broader than the often microscopic changes in timbre, texture, pitch or speed that make a up a jeff mills set.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 21 March 2003 05:19 (twenty-three years ago)

I have Bollywood too, and like Jess sez, there's probably more variation on it than, say, most of Jeff Mills's Live at the Liquid Room, Tokyo, one of my favorite albums.

Also, I feel I should qualify my mock-rant above: as much as I'm a singles fan and know they're the lifeblood of most of the scenes I care about, the idea that we should therefore consume them as such and as such only strikes me as a little narrow and snobby. If I remember right, Cybele lives in Toronto, which from what I understand is N. America's reggae capital, or close enough, and that colors her viewpoint on the consumption of ragga the way it might a Londoner who thinks garage rap is a pirate-radio medium. Both are right, but I, for example, can't download music and have no turntable, so singles are out unless I have friends willing to make me CDs. Compilations, on the other hand, I can get pretty easily, and they're extremely helpful for those of us who like the music but aren't immersed in it. So...blah blah blah, you know the rest. Sorry to come off as a bitch earlier, then.

― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 21 March 2003 06:36 (twenty-three years ago)

i think if you like the beat enough, it doesn't get tedious - I listen to Martial Arts all the time (because I taped it for the car) and never get sick of it. The DJs usally make each track distinctive (different voices, melodies, etc)

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Friday, 21 March 2003 07:24 (twenty-three years ago)

I have to imagine it makes good driving music, actually

― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 21 March 2003 07:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Jess I find all those things exhausting too. But for some reason a riddim album is more so - I think the unmixedness has a lot to do with it.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 21 March 2003 10:25 (twenty-three years ago)

I agree that the most exhausting thing about the riddim album I've got is hearing the track stop and start again. It sort of makes you feel like you're trapped in a musical Groundhog Day. Then once the DJs start it's okay. The minimal techno comparison is a good one though; actually the album that I'm reminded of when listening to Bollywood is Waveform Transmission 1, again perhaps because it's not mixed.

I saw Diwali today - should I buy it or not?

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 23 March 2003 11:26 (twenty-three years ago)

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