Word: ska
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...finish, is their cover and reprise of an old song titled, "Enjoy Yourself--It's Later Than You Think." If that melancholy note wasn't enough, their "Man from C & A" spells the point out plainly: it opens with a shout of "Warning, Warning, Nuclear Attack," and its simple ska beat is punctuated with machine-gun fire and high explosives...
...Sire) The English Beat know how to throw a mean curveball. Two blacks and three whites from Birmingham who are part of the British ska revival that includes the Specials, Selecter and Madness, the Beat juggle black and white music so quickly and deftly that one emerges from their debut album wondering how the hell they did it. Is the frenzied "Click Click" ska or rock & roll? What's a Mersey guitar line doing against a ska rhythm in "Best Friend"? Or, for that matter, a Byrds jingle-jangle guitar in "Two Swords...
...landmark album. A good place to start is with their version of the old Smokey Robinson hit, "Tears of a Clown." Just after the grand introductory riff, the Beat pitches a rhythm that is speedy, tense, seemingly out of whack. Is this Motown or is it ska? Is the bass guitar chasing the sax or is it the other way around? With truckloads of scratchy guitar work, snaky bass runs and exotic sax passages, the Beat create a sound that is soulful, dangerous, irresistible and distinctly urban. One can practically hear the buzz of the neon. The vocals clinch their...
...have always worn their contempt for disco as a sort of cachet of superior taste, and it's always seemed more than a little unfair, particularly because: a) disco is the state-of-the-art in Black music, and there are no Black New Wave bands outside of the ska revivol and no prominent Black rock critics and few white disco bands; b) disco remains the most popular music in America, despite critical limousines rushing it to the grave, as is evidenced by the playlists of the largest AM radio stations, the Number One hit of the summer, "Funkytown...
...have always worn their contempt for disco as a sort of cachet of superior taste, and it's always seemed more than a little unfair, particularly because: a) disco is the state-of-the-art in Black music, and there are no Black New Wave bands outside of the ska revivol and no prominent Black rock critics and few white disco bands; b) disco remains the most popular music in America, despite critical limousines rushing it to the grave, as is evidenced by the playlists of the largest AM radio stations, the Number One hit of the summer, "Funkytown...