Consumer Guide Album

Peter Tosh: The Toughest [Capitol, 1988]
Who knows what got him--some combination of ganja and the screws beating him half to death just when his music took its definitive downturn in the late '70s. Anyway, by finessing his recent past--only four tracks less than seven years old--compiler Neil Spencer camouflages the sad deterioration of one Jamaican artist whose hazy alienation always had a political edge. Sly & Robbie, great Mick Jagger cameo--it's enough to make a charitable person forgive the insufferable "Mystic Man," which is of course included. B+