Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Day 234 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Hopeton Lewis - Take It Easy

There's something about the fact that today's tune, "Take It Easy" by the late Hopeton Lewis, is now being used in a Corona beer ad on television that kinda makes me uncomfortable.  Yes, the vibe feels right with the tropical/beachy imagery and because it is such a great song it's one of the very few that doesn't have me reaching for the mute button on the remote when it pops up but at the same time it kinda pisses me off... a tune that was released as a single on the Merritone label in 1967, will finally get the international recognition it deserves in 2016, 49 years after it was originally recorded and two years after Hopeton Lewis died.  It annoys me like you wouldn't believe that Jamaican music is so exclusively synonymous among the general public with warm weather and good times that it only ever comes to the forefront when it is picked up by some ad agency in late May as a catchy jingle for a warm-weather product.  Sure it's great that this wonderful song will finally be heard by a larger segment of the population but then it will become relegated to taking up space in between Jimmy Buffett tracks on some tool's poolside iTunes playlist.  "Take It Easy" deserves more than forever being called "The Corona Song" and Jamaican music as a whole deserves more than being used as an occasional jingle in the summertime.  This music is good year-round!  I could go on and rant about this for hours but I will shut my mouth... simply because I don't want to derail the good vibes of such an upbeat classic. 

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