Bob Marley & the Wailers "Burnin'" [1973]

Not sure how long this "underdog" stance was supposed to last for Bob Marley, but by "Burnin'" it's already threadbare -- and it's his band's first album on a big record label! Critics have bowed at the feet of this album since it first came out, but I suspect it was more from fear of being chased down by marauding Jamaican street gangs than an honest assessment of its musical contents. The laconic skank grooves erase any urgency of these so-called "call to action" songs, but what do you expect from a group of people who smoke cone-shaped spliffs by the ounce?