This couple let the 'Good Times' roll at the Mas Camp, Oxford Road, New Kingston, on Saturday night, November 28. - Winston Sill

As the final 'Good Times' retro party for the year really got going early Sunday morning, a dramatic shift from matters of the crotch to matters of the Christ in the space of a few minutes emphasised two things.

The amazing variety of music which Jamaica has produced and the ability of Jamaicans to appreciate the thrust of its apparently different - and even differing - aspects.

social commentary

So after a soca set had raised the party spirit inside Mas Camp, New Kingston, considerably higher than the extended playing of laid-back reggae and dancehall beats on the downside of midnight, a run of Jamaican music presented different voices of Jamaica for the huge audience.

In the space of five minutes, they roared for Barrington Levy's rub-a-dub social commentary Murderer, laughed and sang along to Pluto Shervington's accident-sparked, humorous Ram Goat Liver and jammed to Tenor Saw's sound-boy slaughtering Ring The Alarm.

However, it was the proximity of glamity and God in Love P ... Bad, Revival Time and I Saw The Light which emphatically underscored the audiences ability to adapt to the sharply differing moods of Jamaican music presented to them. A mix of Love P ... Bad, in which the title got repeated play on the rolling rhythm before the accustomed version was unleashed, had the women rolling their hips and the men jigging.

A few songs later, Revival Time, followed immediately by Pocomania Day, was greeted with raised hands and body turns. But it was the outright Christian gospel of I Saw The Light which really lifted the audience into the spirit. "All who waan hear it again sey connec'!" a prerecorded sample instructed and many a voice duly complied.

Then the beat changed and the voices chorused along to "King David sit upon the heavenly throne", revelling in the call of "hi, hi, hi!" before the first verse began. Admiral Bailey's God Pickney was the transition song to dancehall.

And the slow songs a few minutes later delighted the members of the audience as well, whether they were with a partner or dancing alone, one man in a red cap doing a good job of cuddling up to his beer. One More Night and Stroke You Down were among the excellent soul shots - then came the uptempo music that sent the party into a lull, a few people actually waving at the deejay's elevated booth to cry cree in the closing stages.

The slew of wining songs that followed did a great make-up job, X-Rated, Action, Dorothy and the Showtime rhythm juggling sending 'Good Times' into a frenzy.

THE STAR left the last edition of the party for 2009 in a rocking, rolling, revelling mood to Rocking Robin and When Doves Cry, the party still packed and a few stragglers coming in.