Toppa Top 10: Ten Classic Songs with a Melodica

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June 20, 2014


10. Gang of Four – Ether

gang-of-four-ether

In the late 1970s and early ’80s, the heavy baselines and calls to chant down Babylon of Jamaican music found a dedicated audience across the pond in England, and not just with its large Jamaican ex-pat communities. White working-class kids disillusioned with a poor economy and a society rift with class and racial tension identified with reggae’s message and started incorporating some of its sonic elements into a new style of music: punk.

So it’s not surprising that the melodica would wind up throughout Gang of Four’s seminal debut Entertainment!, most prominently on the opening track “Ether.” Pablo’s instrument of choice adds a perfectly eerie element to the album’s paranoid vibe despite its sonic distance from Pablo’s sweet dub-heavy melodies.—Saxon Baird