rudie can't fail

Ska is one of the best things in the world, next to folk punk and peanut butter. This is a fact.

Unfortunately, ska music is a little misunderstood today. It gets a bit of a bad rap from the Third Wave, its most recent permutation - a hybrid/dilution, really - that became popular in the late '90s with bands like Reel Big Fish, Sublime, Mustard Plug, Rancid (to an extent), and (very early) No Doubt (ish). If you want a more comprehensive visual guide to the modern rude boy, this is exactly everything you need to know.

But ska has musical and cultural roots much deeper than its newest pop-punky, band-geeky, checkerboard-clad, skankin' sire. Ska music and rude boy culture is actually deeply influential to modern music and fashion, and is integral to many major British subcultures across several eras. (Sidenote: "skanking" is the dance that one does to ska music; literally, the goofiest, funnest, most endorphin-activating dance ever. Not that other thing.) 

The first wave of ska (sometimes called "Trad") originated in 1960s Jamaican dance halls, combining Caribbean calypso with American R&B. The first wave laid the groundwork for ska's now-characteristic upstroke guitar, horns, and walking bassline - basically, all the elements that make it so compulsively hip-shakin' and happy, and also why at ska shows everyone is always yelling to "PICK IT UP!" Like, as in, "Pick up the beat," not your dignity off the floor when you try to start a skanking circle and no one joins you. BUT ANYWAY.  

My favorite Trad ska song, and also one of the most well-known, is Toots and the Maytals' "54-46 (That's My Number)", which was later covered by Sublime:  

So you may be thinking what these aggressively half-naked working-class skinheads are doing all over this happy Caribbean dancehall diddy. That's because skinheads like ska, too! (Who doesn't?) The traditional/Trojan skinheads (NOT the neo-Nazis) adopted ska music as their own when Jamaican immigrants brought the music to England in the late '60s/early '70s.

The second wave, or 2-Tone movement, came about in the late '70s, centered around London and Coventry, England. Started by bands like the Specials and the Toasters, and Jerry Dammers' 2-Tone Records label, the movement revived and updated first wave ska music and promoted unity between whites and blacks - hence ska's characteristic checkerboard pattern (and the name of the movement, duh). This is my favorite wave also because the original rude boys, who came about as a real street culture during this period, were so dapper and had the best dance moves. 

Case in point: the Specials, "Too Much Too Young":

Let me just point out that the singer, Terry Hall, was 20 years old in this video. Hey, 20-year-old boys: PLEASE DRESS LIKE THIS.

Another great second wave song is "One Step Beyond" by Madness. The video is the awkwardest, 80s-est thing ever (which means that it is thoroughly wonderful), and they do that weird marching dance move thing that Emilio Estevez and Co. do to "We Are Not Alone" in The Breakfast Club. You know what I'm talking about.

There's really no way I can stuff more ska-y goodness in here, and I would imagine you wouldn't want me to. (To everyone who's made it this far into the post, I am impressed. Hi, Mom!) So let me just leave you with a STRONG SUGGESTION/COMMAND to 1) YouTube how to skank, 2) watch the video below, and 3) skank your little heart out! Level of sobriety is up to you.

  

(So I had to put this song up because it is a wonderful song and because it is eponymous to this particular blog post, but the Clash aren't really a ska band and this song, though definitely ska-tinged, is really just a salute to the rude boy culture by which the band was so influenced. OK, bye.)