A Guide to the Best Lovers Rock on Bandcamp | #Bandcamp_Daily
▻https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/lovers-rock-list
As Jamaican reggae was exploding onto the mainstream UK scene in the 1970s, a younger, more omnivorous audience was forging a new genre called “lovers rock.” At the time, the children of the #Windrush_Generation, whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean and African Commonwealth en masse in the 1950s, were teenagers looking to establish themselves in the UK, and wanted to do it to their own soundtrack.
While reggae, through its network of under-the-radar soundsystem dances, had become the music of choice for so many Black youngsters, growing up in Britain in the ’60s had exposed them to all manner of other sounds. Motown, Philly soul, and pop music in general—everybody loved the Beatles—were part of their musical environment and were duly reflected in the reggae these kids created for themselves.
Reggae made in Britain at that point veered away from the higher profile Jamaican approach, which modeled itself after Bob Marley’s rebel music; steeped in roots ‘n’ culture ‘n’ Rastafari. British reggae became a Black pop music, the UK’s first, as it absorbed the more melodic aspects of American soul, focused on singing and harmonizing, and centered around young love found, lost, ignored, or precluded. “The songs,” explains Janet Kaye, the genre’s first mainstream star, “were all about us—falling in love, having our hearts broken—so they appealed so much to us as young kids, growing up and finding our ways in the world.”
►https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43782241
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/690996
