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Critic's Review
William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Legend, subtitled "The Best of Bob Marley & the Wailers," was released originally in the U.K. in May 1984, three years after Marley's death (a U.S. release followed a couple of months later). The album's contents reflected Marley's success as a singles act in Great Britain, which had commenced with the live version of "No Woman No Cry" from his July 1975 concert at the Lyceum in London, a recording that made the U.K. Top 40. Marley continued to score British hits, mostly with his more danceable and less-political songs, even after his death. The album contained ten of his 11 Top 40 tracks up to the time of its release, plus "Redemption Song" and three standards from his early career: "Get up Stand Up," "Stir It Up," and "I Shot the Sheriff." The result was hardly an ideal Marley compilation, presenting, for example, five tracks from the Exodus album but none at all from Natty Dread or Rastaman Vibration, but for Britons who knew the reggae star from his radio hits, it was perfect. Nevertheless, Legend benefited from the rise of Marley's reputation in the decades after his death (and, to be fair, helped stimulate that rise), becoming a phenomenal seller in catalog to the point that it registered more than ten million copies in the U.S. alone. As such, it has become definitive by default. As part of its series called "The Definitive Remasters," Island Records has upgraded Legend in two ways. A "deluxe edition" containing an entire extra disc of remixes was issued, and this single-disc version contains two bonus tracks, "Easy Skanking" and "Punky Reggae Party," the missing Top 40 U.K. hit. (Actually, the original British cassette version contained these songs, at a time when record companies added bonus tracks to cassettes to stimulate sales.)
