Sounds and Reggae

Picking up from the other post, one thing that has struck me for a while now, thanks to Soundsclips and Zounds Abounds scanning issues of Sounds from the late '70s and early '80s, is how regularly they covered Jamaican music.

You think of Sounds and the things that spring to mind would be Oi! and Bushellism, and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. And maybe if you knew your British rock paper history, you would also think about Jon Savage and New Musick, and the "grey overcoat" Fac-loving thing associated with Dave McCullough, at least until he flipped for Postcard and his own version of poptimism. 

But alongside all that - the many flavours of ROCK -  Sounds consistently covered reggae and dancehall. Put Jamaican and Black British artists on the cover. 

(They also covered funk and soul, did pieces on early rap and hip hop). 

NME was probably even better at covering these areas, but Sounds did a creditable job.  

Especially considering this was verily the Dark Age of Rockisme. Or so we are told. 

A lot of the late '70s coverage is coming from Vivien Goldman, before she jumped to first Melody Maker and then to NME. But there were other writers who kept it going deep into the Eighties, including Jack Barron and Edwin Pouncey. 

And not just the roots-rock-rebel stuff, they also covered reggae at its poppiest - lover's.

Even Gaz Bushell wrote a bit about reggae now and then

And not just reggae...