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Old 07-13-2009, 08:10 PM   #11 (permalink)
Gavin B.
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Originally Posted by Engine View Post
Gotta heartily disagree with you on who is most commercial sounding. As for my experience with The Beat, I have only ever heard "I Just Can't Stop It" so thanks for the warning. I have two reasons for thinking that The Beat is the most commercial sounding of the 2 Tone bands: 1) I grew up hearing "Mirror In The Bathroom" alongside lots of unbearable Top 40 Pop crap like Rick Springfield and Air Supply. 2) The sax. I know, I know - Saxa is a real ska legend and all but when you put that much sax in 80s Pop - no matter how skillful it is, you end up with something that sounds at least a little bit like Foreigner.



I always have felt that punk's biggest connection to ska is in ska's fast skank guitar. That and the wild energy of the vocalist are what make The Selecter feel the 'most punk' to me. The Specials, Madness, and The Beat all seem about equally punk I guess.



Agreed.

EDIT: I posted this before I watched the video up in post #2: Punk debates aside - that's some good shit! Like I said, I probably should invest more time in The Beat...
I'm not sure where you grew up but I never heard the Beat on any radio station, let alone a station that also played Rick Springfield and Air Supply.

I'm not even sure how Foreigner sounded, so I'll have to leave that call to your judgement, since you're familiar with the music of both bands. And please don't ask me to listen to Rick Springfield or Air Supply or Foreigner to verify your assessment because there isn't a lot of MOR pop that I can listen to without getting an urge to commit suicide within 2 minutes.

That being said, there's plenty of commerical sounding music that is worth listening to and I don't hold commercial success against any band.

But let's face it, none of the 2 Tone bands were not selling zillion units of musical product, be it the Beat, the Specials, Selector or Madness. I checked at the RIAA site none of the 2 Tone albums sold enough units to chart at 100,000 sales in the USA, even thirty years after their initial release.

Forward thinking bands rarely gain a mass audience, no matter how commerical they sound. Elvis Costello is probably the most enduring artist from that era and his music has the purest pop sound of any of the punk and post punk bands.
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