THE GENRE PROJECT - January 1 - Dub

Genre of the Day - Dub, Album of the Day - King Tubby's 'King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown'

Genre - Dub

Album - King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown by King Tubby

January 1, 2024

Dub is a genre I have no prior experience with, but I learned when researching the genre that many of the genres I’m sonically attracted to, from drum’n’bass to trip-hop and hip-hop. Dub was developed in Jamaica and the genre’s thesis is to strip back familiar reggae songs by deemphasizing vocals, adding hypnotic and disjointed effects like reverb to create a dynamic, psychedelic soundscape and bringing attention to the drums and bass of the song’s instrumental, more commonly referred to as the ‘riddim’ in the genre. In terms of releases, dub’s output relative to all releases peaked early in the genre’s existence in 1978. As a wannabe music nerd and soon-to-be entrant into a 2-unit music production class, I also think it’s cool that this genre really is for and by music nerds, as Jamaican recording engineers—if engineer is in your job’s title, that has to make you the nerdiest person in the studio—created the genre through innovation and experimentation. 

RateYourMusic’s top album was 1976’s King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown by the eponymous King Tubby. On the album cover, King Tubby—one of the genre’s pioneers—pays homage to Jamaica’s distinctive cultural background, with a portrait of Rastafari’s central figure Haile Selassie mirroring his expression in the background and a poster of a reggae concert. 

This album certainly delivers on dub’s promises. It is like nothing I have ever heard—the sonic dynamism across the album is unparalleled, with rich bass providing an anchor to the spaced out and hazy flickers of piano, steel drums, and guitar. King Tubby is like a master weaver, stitching together sounds in a way that other genres couldn’t attempt without sounding unfocused and messy. This was an album I would not hesitate to recommend to people, and is an especially good introduction to dub considering it clocks in at only 35 minutes. It also gives me a richer appreciation for some of the music I love that I know notice the clear influence of dub on. A perfect example of the application of dub in high-profile later albums would be the song Feel No Pain by Sade.

Apologies for a bit of a messy first entry. I just wanted to get this posted by midnight and get this little writing project off the ground as trying to listen to an album of a different genre every day is one of my New Year’s resolutions. I will likely make another post detailing why I want to do this and how I plan to go about it, but that’s a project for tomorrow.