Task: Sentiment Analysis
Input (English): Sure sounded like a good idea... . Bob Dylan's work has been adapted to all kinds of musical styles, and you'd think reggae would be a perfect fit, since, like Dylan, it often fuses of the spiritual and the political and both Dylan and many reggae artists have a fondness for lush but not gooey romantic ballads (No Woman No Cry etc).    But this CD really doesn't work for me. I like my reggae rootsy (as far as I'm concerned, Lee Perry is God, or I guess Jah), and this sounds like slick, soulless beer commercial reggae, the kind of thing you'd probably hear at a resort pool party. Producer Doctor Dread has a very unfortunate fondness for smooth jazz sax, cocktail lounge guitar and sacharine flutes. It's all very professional, yes. These are some of the top studio musicians in Jamaica (Sly, Chinna) and they hit all the right notes. But they're just picking up a paycheck. After this session it sounds like they could well have laid down some tracks for a Jamaican Tourist Board spot.    Some of it is okay. Toots is always great, Apple Gabriel has a wonderful molasses-and-ganja voice, Michael Rose makes an interesting choice in The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol and Sizzla turns Subterannean Homesick Blues into a dancehall song, which works surprisingly well (and I don't like dancehall). The cover of Gotta Serve Somebody is pretty good too, partly because it was recorded separately from the rest of the CD so the backing music isn't so cold and efficient. You should probably just cherry-pick these from iTunes.    But even many of the good performances are sabotaged by that awful by-the-numbers studio sound.
Output (English): NEG