Word: ska
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Ska-a back-pocket onomatopoeia for the distinctive sound of the beat-means no harm, carries no heavy freight, sets out to make you happy and keep you dancing. Ska is the no-account stepfather of reggae, the blues-inflected Jamaican soul popularized Stateside by Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley and seen to splendid advantage in The Harder They Come, one of the best and most popular cult films of the '70s. Reggae shouldered a lot of political burden and social outrage, sometimes sounded almost introverted in its island concerns and religious visions. By contrast, ska is flat...
Reggae has already been absorbed into the English punk scene. The Clash perform their own blistering versions of reggae tunes. But a group called the Specials, as well as their allied band, Madness, have dusted off ska and made it shine like new. Both bands have had hit singles and albums on their home turf. Now the records have been receiving an encouraging amount of FM air play here, while Specials and Madness concerts around America have been enthusiastically attended by disenfranchised new wavers and punks without portfolio. Ska may or may not be the latest crest...
Stranger's original version, along with 15 other vintage ska songs, is available on a recently released compilation called Intensified! (Mango Records), which offers some interesting source material to set against the carnival modifications of the young English revivalists. Most of the Intensified! tunes have a loping energy, even when the recording quality is dense and almost smothering, as if the musicians were trying to play their way out of a bowl of tapioca. Both the Madness and Specials albums (the latter produced by the sullen genie of punk, Elvis Costello) are careful to preserve a spontaneous sound that...
...from the careless cuffs of their pegged pants up to the porkpie hats that sit on their heads like a street hustler's version of cap and bells. In performance, both bands leap about in transports of benign dementia. The highlight of a Madness show is a ska version of Swan Lake that features a couple of roadies conking their noggins together like a couple of billy goats in a brawl...