Maverick A Strike

That’s it, I’m calling for a constitutional convention among the users of this site. For too long, we have been subjected to the whim and whimsy of one “Robert Dimery” and the time has come for us to agree upon some self-evident truths. It is high time that we free ourselves from the tyranny of mediocrity. Are we not civilized beings, should we not be allowed to once again hold our heads high, unburdened by the choices made by one man several decades ago? As such, I have drafted the first article of our bill of rights, a reference point to be used by any user in good standing with the site: We, the people of the 1001 albums generator community, do hereby establish the following: Article I Section I. When, in the course of daily listening, a user encounters an album or artist that no reasonable person has talked about in 25 years, the user may apply “The Rule” when providing a poor rating of the album. Section II. “The Rule” states the following- If you haven’t heard anyone of sound body and mind talk about the suggested album or artist in 20 years or more, the album can be deemed inessential on such grounds. Section III. No user shall be admonished for applying “The Rule” to an album, so long as the criteria laid out in Section I appears to have been met.

Bro who even is this guy. I google his name and the first result is "Finley Quaye found guilty for headbutting terminally ill friend over Game of Thrones" and the image is some black-and-white Gilbert Gottfried lookalike (rest in peace by the way) and Peter Dinklage. Then the literal next result is "Finley Quaye admits criminal damage after he threw metal road sign through glass bus door". The third result is "Finley Quaye threatened to stab cop and 'get a grenade' for bar manager he vowed to shoot". This guy is just smashing everything in his path, pulverizing innocent citizens with his laser beam eyes, and I'm supposed to listen to his album? I listened to his album and it was pretty alright. Not a huge fan of reggae or obliterating people with metal rods, but I enjoyed "Sunday Shining". Hope he doesn't throw a comically large piano down a flight of stairs at me for giving his album a 2/5.

This album struck a wrong chord with me, a Scottish musician with Ghanaian roots playing pseudo reggae with a fake Jamaican accent. I was born in Jamaica so I just found it to be so wrong from the get go. This was a big miss for me

Pretty chill reggae, but including this while having 0 Toots & The Maytals albums should be illegal.

Feel like I should be sat drinking lattes and reading the guardian in a penthouse flat in Chorlton on a Sunday morning in the 90's.

I have some issues with Maverick A Strike. Finley Quaye's take on dub and reggae is so light it almost floats away; he makes someone like Alpha Blondy look like an exemplar of hardcore roots reggae, which takes some doing. While I was listening to this album, my immediate thought was, \"This is some Brit pretending to be a Jamaican,\" and it turns out that I was almost right. Finley Quaye is actually a born and bred Scot. He can't even claim to be a 2nd generation Jamaican because his dad was born in London and has Ghanaian roots. Now, this is not the same as what bands like The Specials were doing, because it was clear they were playing Brit fanboy versions of their favorite music. Rather, Finley Quaye is trying to pass himself off as a Jamaican singer. This is a little like someone putting on a Southern drawl to sing country when they were raised in Newark, NJ or Michael McDonald trying to sing soul. To be clear, I'm not offended or anything. Hey, if Finley Quaye can pull it off, more power to him. And he almost can, but his singing is by far the weakest element in Maverick A Strike. I suspect you could throw a rock in Jamaica and hit someone with more dub and reggae skills.Which brings me to the music itself. While, compositionally speaking, these songs are as simple as nursery rhymes, they sound amazing. I fully expected to find some star producer calling the shots in the background, but surprisingly, given his weakness as a singer, all of this is due to Finley Quaye himself! He arranged all of the tunes and wrote the originals. And the band consists of his buddies instead of studio musicians. His half-brother was a guitarist with Elton John, so that gives some indication of the pool of talent he had available. And you've got to give credit to Quaye for how tastefully and naturally he has managed to incorporate rock, soul, pop, and triphop touches into the dub and reggae. I've never heard this particular combination of genres--it's wholly original, and pretty darned cool. And the sound! There isn't one horrible sounding synth patch anywhere! The horns and strings are tastefully arranged, never overwhelming the slight songs.If Quaye had been as gifted a composer and singer as he is a producer and arranger, Maverick A Strike would have been a masterpiece, but I'm sorry to report that, as it is, Maverick A Strike is just listenable.

This is the first 1 I've encountered where I was completely unfamiliar with the subject matter. The vocals feels completely divorced from the music and both are absolutely inane. This is directionless and passionless and reflective of bad 90s reggae in general. I have no idea how this made the list.

Definitely don’t need to listen to Scottish Reggae.

Is this really from 26 years ago? Back in the 1990s I took an ill-advised job as a door-to-door lead generator for a double glazing company. Five of us would climb into a decade-old Ford Granada and get ourselves to some part of town where we'd knock on people's doors and ask them if they'd like double glazing. Surprisingly few people did. A couple of things stick very clearly in my mind from that awful fortnight. The first is the the driver of the Ford Granada had spent more money on the car's stereo than he had on the actual car. The second is that he didn't have a driving licence. Or insurance. Pretty sure he didn't tax it, either. Any rate, the stereo was pretty good; CD players in cars, especially cars as old as a Granada, were incredibly rare. Most that could play CDs were serviced by a cassette adaptor plugged into a Sony Discman stuck to the dashboard, and this was exactly the situation here. Each day one of the five would bring in a CD to listen to as we were driven from area to area to flog double glazing. Even after all this time (see what I did there?) I remember that one of the people enjoying the back seat of that enormous Ford was a girl called Hannah, who brought this CD with her one day. And it was by far and away the best album anyone brought along for the whole ten days I dragged my teenage arse to that terrible job. Looking back, I have absolutely no concern about what the rat-like Granada driver did with his life, if anything. I couldn't care less what the other two scrotey teenage boys have become. But I do wonder if Hannah ever amounted to anything, with her impeccably awesome music taste. This album is the easiest five stars of the week, and I wish I'd spent more time with it over the past twenty years, with its lovely wobbly bass, catchy tunes and questionable appropriation. No, it isn't authentic. It doesn't have to be. Listen to it, relax to it and enjoy the vibes.

I don't know what's more interesting - the cultural history of the Ga-Dangbe ethnic group of Ghana, from which Quaye's father is from; or the fact that Quaye once headbutted a terminally ill friend in an argument over Game of Thrones. I'll tell you what is not most interesting. This album. I mean, I think he probably thought he was making interesting music, but I didn't find it interesting.

A Scot impersonating a Jamaican accent to do reggae is the equivalent of a trust fund Pennsylvanian putting on a southern drawl to do country.

So many many many great reggae albums have been created and are not on this list. Why this mediocre one is, God only knows…🤔

I'll admit some of these some of these songs aren't good and some are objectively bad. But a few of these reggae baselines are so filthy (played by Quayle himself) that I may or may not have become pregnant listening to this. I was familiar with "Even After All" and "Your Love Gets Sweeter" as they were staples on mixtapes for hippy girls when I was in high school. Undoubtedly they acted as an aphrodisiac for the right teenage girl. However in my case it just made them realize they wanted a cool, Rasta musician type, and not some nerdy weirdo. Oops Well I was still on the fence about this one until I heard "Supreme I Preme" 90s hip hop anthem wet dream. Now I plan to name the child after his father Finlay Quayle Jr., which again I have mixed feelings about because most of this album isn't very good.

Super mellow and smooth, especially for a Sunday afternoon. Very chill with hypnotic (but not numbing) vocals.

This is not a good album. The overly nasal vocals with singing in what turns out to be an affected Jamaican patois. When you get a different sounding song like Sunday Shining, you remember it until you go right back into the most generic dub-sounding instrumentation on everything else. This might be the most soulless "reggae" album I've heard.

Fantastic album👌🏽 The track Even After All was especially good.

Amazing album!

Definitely in the top ten of my favourite albums of the 90s. An absolute Eton Mess of styles and sounds all mashed together deliciously.

Though it came out in `97, I always associate this album with the middle of 1998. At the time, this album along with Eagle Eye Cherry's Desireless and Ian Brown's Unfinished Monkey Business were my Sunday afternoon chill out albums. Shaking off the hangover from the night before they hit the rest button before I went off and did it all again. I remember getting paid out for liking these albums but they were important to me at the time. Listening with fresh ears after not having played Maverick a Strike for over a decade, the parts I loved are still as good as I remember. Flawed in places, it still deserves the acolasdes it got in Britain and I wish it took off more in Australia.

Oh man. This is what most excited me about going on this journey: stumbling across something/someone I am entirely unfamiliar with that I absolutely love! A few songs on this album are new favorites and I will be checking out more. More smooth butter on the heels of Norah Jones at #72.

Really enjoyed it

Amazing work

Nothing to dislike here.

10/10 what genre is this?? post-reggae?! it sounds awesome!!

One of mi nineties preferred

Smooooooth AF

Loved listening to this again.

Dope

Loved it

Quite enjoyed it, a groover for sure, lots of tracks that get better as you listen to them start to hypnotize the ears. Standout Tracks: It's Great When We're Together, Ride On and Turn the People On, The Way of the Explosive, Supreme I Preme, I Need a Lover

Ah, more like it, some traditional Scottish music. It's the sound of late 90s sophistication again. Nice enough lite reggae with a sprinkling of trip hop. Inoffensive.

Finely Quaye's chilled-out, good times, have a blunt, peace and love maaaaaan vibes don't really sit well given his subsequent history of assaults, property damage and other erratic and problematic behaviour. I don't trust that accent is real either. As a listening experience this is pointless but not actually evil. But there is a cognitive dissonance between the ostensible message and tone of the record compared to the artist's lived experience which makes it seem a bit icky. I will address the eternal question of "can we enjoy the art irrespective of the behaviour of the artist?" by noting that the artist has indeed behaved poorly and his art is insincere and uninspiring. Mr Quaye has essentially disappeared without a trace (musically speaking, if not from court appearances). Feels like people aren't really buying his schtick. Why include this flash-in-the-pan faux reggae when the genre as a whole is so under-represented? Just because Dimery played this album a lot when he was smoking doobs at university? Fuck off.

I mean, this list has given me several 5's recently so it was about time for one of these. I don't know, why? Just why? Is it the worst album on the list, probably not. But does it deserve an hour of literally anyone’s time, not one bit.

Insanely bland pop reggae that has no hooks whatsoever.

It's very pleasant. Sunny. Lyrics not always sunny. Like the production in headphones. Red Rolled and Seen is good. Sone interesting stuff going on here.

Hes right behind me isnt he

I hope to God I never meet anyone in my life that considers this soulless junk essential. It's albums like this that makes me question if doing this project is even worth it. I spent almost an hour hearing this garbage because I actually hear every album because if I didn't what would be the bloody point? I could have spent that hour hearing something I actually like- you know? I promised myself that if I ever fail to listen to an album IN FULL from start to finish, I will stop doing this project at once- today I came really close to throwing in the towel. If someone prompted AI to create an album using the words, Reggae, trip hop, soul & insightful lyrics that album would sound EXACTLY like this garbage. Fuck art is subjective. This is shit. Did you like this album? Good for you! You enjoy shit music, own it but don't fool yourself into thinking it's a good album- it's not, you just have shit taste.

God I hate reggae singing so so so much. The sometimes nice-ish trip-hoppy background music isn't enough to make the horrendous singing bearable. How can people stand, let alone enjoy this? Wikipedia also doesn't offer any hints on why this album might be relevant in any way.

I think this author just puts random stuff down as this album sucks and in no way needs to be listened to before you die.

Bland and forgettable. I hated the singles from this at release and they haven't improved, especially with Quaye's cod-Jamaican accent. Could pass as background music but shouldn't be on this list.

Never heard of Finley before but I like Reggae a lot. This is perfect music to start my Sunday even though it is 11 degrees out. I really dig the basslines. Funky, melodic and in the pocket. Groovy stuff.

Really enjoyed

Probably the greatest Scottish reggae album of all time (admittedly not a long list of contenders) and one I come back to every year when the sun comes out.

What a surprise! Right in your eyes! Funky 90s reggae who would have guessed it?!? Not for everyone certainly but certainly for me

Okey.

This one is nostalgic for me

Zonnige zomervibes en feel good reggae muziek. Met veel plezier naar geluisterd

This album is so legit. Good period. I am so thankful to the list for turning me on to this record. I would have never heard otherwise in my life ...so so good. I do recommend..

Like it. No stand out songs, but overall good-mood music. Probably liked Sunday Shining best.

Damn good reggae tunes

quite nice and musically not just the simple cliche reggae everyone knows

Super quality reggae, much needed

I was excited to see Finley Quaye show up, as I was pretty sure that I had an album by him, although I couldn't recall either the name of the album (turns out to be "Much More Than Much Love" (2003)) or what exactly he sounded like, which turns out to be completely different on my album than this one. I enjoyed this album, but in a kind of pleasant background music sort of way rather than an engaging listen; it seemed like he was sampling various chill sounds and styles, reminding me of debut albums by Norah Jones or Amy Winehouse, where it's like they were testing out different voices and hadn't quite found their way yet. The highlights for me were probably "Sunday shining" (although not the video so much; actually none of the videos did much for the songs), "Ride on and turn the people on" , and "Supreme I preme".

Un mélange de soul et de reggae sur fond d'ustensiles de cuisine ; Finley Quaye a réussi son pari. Tout y passe : les casseroles, les poêles, la râpe à fromage... on peut même entendre un épluche-légume marquer le rythme sur plusieurs morceaux. Un véritable tour de force.

I was not familiar with this guy and really liked this, particularly on a sunny Sunday.

Surprisingly tolerable

bro is literally scottish….

This is a Scottish guy pretending to be Jamaican. Once you realise that fact, it's very distracting – coupled with the fact that he's just not a good vocalist. His enunciation is pretty bad, occasionally making it tough to work out the lyrics from listening alone. It sounds a bit like he's learning to speak for the first time. And doing so drunkenly in front of a large, judgemental crowd. The melodic rhythm is often tentative, fragmented, oversyncopated to the point of arrhythmia. The melodies themselves are nearly nonexistent. They're not only unmemorable and not very catchy, but they sound improvised. As if Quaye were making them up on the spot, without really understanding the harmonies or what the other instruments are doing. The opening track, Ultra Stimulation, is a bad choice to introduce people to Finley Quaye's music because it's (maybe) the worst offender in terms of vocals. Some highlights: the basslines in about half the songs are uninteresting, but the remaining ones are excellent. Super groovy, reminds me of your classic Marley recordings with a small dose of modern electronic influence. For this reason, Sunday Shining, Even After All, and some of the non-hit tracks actually become bearable in spite of the bad singing. I'm a fan of the chill keyboards too – first seen in It's Great When We're Together and Even After All, and then throughout the album from there. It really glues together the instrumental sound. 2/5 Key tracks: Sunday Shining, Even After All, Your Love Gets Sweeter

So I was pleasantly surprised by “”Maverick A Strike” by Finley Quaye… As a reggae aficionado, I liked the vibe of the album – as while it is not true reggae, I’d call it reggae-tinged for sure… There was good diversity throughout the album which is always appreciated, and there really isn’t a bad track on it either – just some songs are better than others… Also a nice dose of originality on top gets a tip o’ the cap… Best songs IMO were – “Sunday Shining” – 4-stars out of 7… “Even After All” – 4-stars out of 7… “The Way Of The Explosive” – 4-stars out of 7… “Red Rolled & Seen” – Nice groove instrumental and 4-stars out of 7… “Maverick A Strike” – Has a vibe of Marley’s “Exodus”, just not nearly as good – also 4-stars out of 7…

Scale: 1: Dissapointing 2: Didn't enjoy 3: Decent 4: Enjoyed 5: Would listen again (My first impression if not mentioned otherwise in a comment) Ultra Stimulation: 2/5, weird ass intrumentals It's Great When We're Together: 3/5, fine Sunday Shining:3/5, ok Even After All: 2/5, idk Ride On and Turn the People On: 1/5, worst one so far The Way of the Explosive: 2/5, idk Your Love Gets Sweeter: 2/5, idk Supreme I Preme: 4/5, cool Sweet and Loving Man: 1.5/5, dont like it Red Rolled and Seen: 1/5, idk why this is here Falling: 3.5/5, cool I Need a Lover: 1.5/5, boring Maverick a Strike: 1.5/5, a song Overall: 2.23/5, pretty mediocre

Hier j'ai pas été tendre avec The Strokes et aujourd'hui, je vais l'être encore moins, parce qu'est-ce que c'était que ça ? Finley Quaye, je ne savais pas qui c'était avant aujourd'hui et ça ne me manquait pas tant que ça. Je ne sais pas trop pourquoi Robert Dimery a décidé d'intégrer cet album à la liste. Est-ce qu'il a trouvé que c'était un incroyable exemple de pop reggae ? De façon globale, quand on ajoute pop à un genre musicale, ça annonce rarement quelque chose d'incroyable. Dans ce cas-là, ça annonçait plutôt une catastrophe. Donc, c'est quoi, Maverick A Strike ? C'est plusieurs choses à la fois, mais c'est surtout un album de reggae, mais auquel on aurait retiré toute sa substantifique moelle pour un faire un quelconque album de pop un peu original, parce qu'il y a des skanks. Donc oui, il y a des influences de reggae sur Maverick A Strike, mais le message politique ? L'énergie ? Disparus ! On a droit à la place à de la musique absolument barbante dans laquelle rien d'original ni même un peu intéressant ne se passe. De temps en temps, le tempo s'accélère, on a enfin un peu d'énergie et pendant quelques instants, j'ai cru que cet album allait quand même s'élever à 2. Mais non, le reste est tellement ennuyeux et sans âme que je me suis emmerdé comme rarement depuis que j'ai commencé à faire cette liste. Je comprends pas pourquoi un truc aussi mièvre a pu se retrouver dans la liste.

A Scottish guy with Ghanaian heritage pretending to be Jamaican, putting on a fake accent and singing about “Rastas”? No, thank you. On top of that, the music is painfully dull, the vocals sound like a Sesame Street puppet with a cold and it seems that old Finley is an awful man outside the studio too. This should not be on the list. Nobody needs to hear this. A waste of a spot on this project.

Listening to this album made me another victim of his abuse

I really have no idea why this was on here. Just dull reggae. I guess this was big in the UK in the 90s?

This shit sucks

I'm writing this about ten minutes after listening to this record, and I can't say I remember much. I remember some reggae and dub influences, mixed with some modern-ish techniques. Honestly, the whole package was a little bit yacht-rock-ish to me. The performances are listless, just very wallpaper. I think I can say I enjoyed "Supreme I Preme", because it was a least a little bit interesting. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to feel that there's no way this album should be here.

Such a good album. A favourite of mine but probably one I haven’t listened to as much as others that I love as much. The circumstances have to be right. Great for a summers day.

Really enjoyed. Very summery so perfect for a hot day

This was such a great listen - felt very dynamic with most songs really sticking in my head - music to change a bad mood. Loved listening to the one about London whilst walking across the Thames !

Well damn! Another 1001 Albums success story! I only vaguely remember Finley Quaye's moment back in the Y2K era. I dreamt about The Face and iD magazine while listening, style mags that had hit their epic strides in the years prior to this album. He's a stylish lad, Mr. Quaye! And his reggae heart and the love therein moves me. Added!

very classy~ I LOVE IT!

Wow, dit is echt een grote verrassing. Origineel, vrolijk, reggae

This has been a very reliable friend to me for nearly 30 years. Never lets me down. So many great songs that have passed the test of time. I love it.

Take that, Michael Franti!

Vibes Vibes Vibes. This got me through a very rainy day!

Laid back, sunny, and quietly soulful. Rating: 4.6/5 Short Review: This album blends reggae, trip hop, and pop into something warm and relaxed. It drifts in a pleasant way, like late afternoon light with a little melancholy underneath. Favorite Track: Sunday Shining. Easy, breezy, and instantly memorable.

It's great to not hear just another white band and same genre

Didn't expect a Scot doing reggae to sound this nice, but color me surprised. 4.5 bumped up to 5.

5, merveilleux je m'éleve

Super album, if anything sounds better now than it did when it came out.

Like Marley evolved. Perfection.

Yes surprisingly good

loved just about every minute of this!

Blown away, absolutely unreal.

Great voice, great tunes

I don’t know what I was expecting… but it wasn’t this. I think I love reggae. I was uncertain with the first song because I was in a mood when I turned this on… but the more I listened… my mood started to disappear and I was calm. Could’ve been the circumstances but I listened at the right time! Big fan!

I owed this in 1997, it is an excellent piece of work. A good 9/10

Really awesome and fun album. Shocking that it was his first. Really ran a range of vibes, and a lot of it felt incredibly fresh. Thought this was going to be a dub/reggae album (and was happy about it) but it is much more. It’s a whole experience. Supreme I Preme was a standout. Some very cool sounds in there.

When it said Scottish artist schooled in London I thought I was in for another generic Brit rock album but this was so cool, not at all what I was expecting. The reggae mixed with the electronics was totally unique and it’s clear why this has become so popular for a debit album.

I've never heard of this artist, but idk, I kinda vibed with this! Pretty funky and catchy. Fizzled out a bit toward the end, I thought, but I'd definitely listen to this again.

Number: 185 Familiarity: None (1) Rating: 4 This album was a nice surprise. Never heard of this guy before listening to this. I found the album mostly very pleasant to listen to and will rate it a 4. Should it be on this list? Probably not. Will I ever listen to it again? Probably not.

Wasnt expecting that! Amazing listen. The instrumentality is amazing and his voice with his accent makes it to a whole other level. Great fusion of genres!

Great album.

Dig it

When I saw the album cover I recognised it instantly but didn't recall listening to it. When I listened to it the first time there were a couple of moments where I felt it was the kind of thing that would have been playing at certain house parties some time in the late 90s? And yes that means there was a second listen. I daresay the reggae-soul sound is not new or radical but I really enjoyed it and I think there is going to be a 3rd and subsequent return to this chilled pop album. A welcome (re)find(?) I wasn't expecting.

Interesting sounds

Remember seeing this around. Never actually listened to it before… Wow. I was actually familiar with a few tracks. And the rest was gladly received. I guess I really dig this period of Trip hop/ genre meshing in Britain for the most part. 4 Boolean: True

keep goin❤️‍🩹

Guzell her sey guzel olacak

Used to be a lovable stoner, turned into an aggro stoner. But this was a lovely start. A good one to have on sitting in the sunshine.