[Jimmy Cliff] leads off a collection of some of the very greatest examples of earlier reggae by several acknowledged masters [on "The Harder They Come"]. Some of the songs in this album—the Slickers' Johnny Too Bad, Cliff's own You Can Get It If You Really Want and Many Rivers to Cross, and the title tune—have already become standards. Certainly Cliff has never been as strong since this tour de force display of deceptively lilting Otis Redding vocal turns and street-tough lyrics…. "The Harder They Come" achieves total commercial accessibility without compromising its hardwon political principles or their religious base, nor does it teeter on the edge of the abyss of self-parody as so much subsequent topical reggae does. Convincing evidence in support of the argument that reggae is the soul music of the Seventies (American soul having been all but decimated by disco), this album will...