Word: ska
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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With the recent popularity of bands like No Doubt, Sublime and Goldfinger, the ska scene has seen its music, or at least a kind of diluted derivative, vaulted into the radio spotlight. Goldfinger's "Here In My Bedroom" deservedly broke through to the mainstream with its undeniably infectious intro melody and catchy chorus. The song's radio air-play was probably what packed the sold-out show at the Middle East with a predominantly teenage crowd. Yet no matter what the listener's motivation, whether radio or devotion to a particular band, the audience was graced with two extraordinarily energetic...
...inkling about the band's music, it showed how each of their individual talents could blend into a beautiful performance. Once Reel Big Fish hit the first note, there was no stopping the unrelenting in-your-face power of the horns and vocals backed up by a classic ska rhythm and background harmonies...
...just in time. Straight-ahead rock is a bit exhausted right now. Instead, rockers who draw from R. and B., hip-hop and/or ska are hot--the funky rock band 311, the pop-ska band No Doubt, the ska-punk band Sublime. "Some of the stuff that's big for us lately seems less rock and has more of a beat influence," says Lisa Worden, music director for kroq, an alternative-rock station in Los Angeles. "Beck stays away from the typical rock sound." Odelay isn't a flawless album--Beck isn't as soulful as some...
...Sublime Sublime (Gasoline Alley/MCA). A good-hearted street riot of punk rock, avant-garde hip-hop and ska (a faster, jerkier reggae precursor), Sublime's music is hard to categorize and harder still to resist. The band is already defunct (the lead singer and songwriter, the puckishly gifted Brad Nowell, died of a heroin overdose in May), but no rock album this year sounds more alive...
...worth remembering too that the music business is cyclic. Every few years critics proclaim that rock is dead, and then a band like Nirvana--or the Sex Pistols before them--comes around and changes everything. Now the hunt is definitely on for the next Next Big Thing. Ska is a candidate, with groups like No Doubt racking up sales. Trip-hop is another contender, with performers such as Tricky and Portishead. There are also electronic-dance-music forms like Jungle. "We see 1997 as a time of exploration in the music biz," says MTV's Schuon. Explains Lisa Cortes, former...