Sound System: A Rough Introduction to Ska & Rocksteady
It all begins with Rancid, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and No Doubt. Or rather, it did for me as a suburban white boy growing up in the 90s. The pop punk scene headed by Green Day was just going mainstream. Following closely behind, Rancid had their moment. The Clash-influenced band from Berkeley who featured a pair of ex-Operation Ivy members had only a hint of ska in their sound, but soon a wave a ska-punk bands would be everywhere. And I loved them. From the elder statesmen Bosstones and Toasters to the rising upstarts Less Than Jake, Buck-o-Nine and the Voodoo Glow Skulls, ska was experiencing what was being called it’s third wave. As the third wave had its moment in the sun during the mid 90s, right before nu metal came along to shit upon everything, the 2 Tone bands of the late-70s/early-80s second wave got some attention as well. So, I became familiar with The Specials, Madness, The Selecter and The Beat. Unfortunately, the third wave did little to shed light on the vastly superior original ska/rocksteady scene or the history of the genre. A couple compilations would help bring that to my attention in my college years, but
A New UK Alternative Dance Craze
In the UK, following the punk/new wave explosion of the late 70s, many new subgenres emerged. New Order, OMD, and Human League all incorporated synthesizers leading to a new style of dance music. Meanwhile, artists such as Orange Juice and The Smiths developed a new sound that repackaged the Byrds jangly guitars into something new and unique. By the mid-late 80s, a handful of bands in the Manchester scene had built a new scene around a psychedelic sound that merged the dance rhythms of a band like New Order with an MDMA-distorted version jangle pop. Performing regularly at The Haçienda nightclub (a staple in the rising rave culture scene co-owned by New Order), The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, James, and The Charlatans were the core of the Madchester sound/scene. The aesthetic of baggy clothing that many of the bands wore led to subgenre being called "Baggy" as the sound became hip and started to spread beyond the Manchester scene, inspiring new bands like Blur and Soup Dragons. Around the same time, a handful of bands throughout the UK were developing a different style of dance rock that drew more heavily from electronica. Pop Will Eat Itself, EMF, Ned's Atomic