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A more rock-oriented take on ska became popular in the U.S. during the '90s, although it was much farther removed from the music's Jamaican origins than the British version had been. Desmond Dekker. The Skatalites. The Gladiators. Toots & the Maytals. Millie Small. Tommy McCook. Jackie Mittoo. Bob Marley.
- Albums
Ska marked the true beginning of Jamaican popular music,...
- Songs
Ska marked the true beginning of Jamaican popular music,...
- The English Beat
Animated ska revivalists who scored five Top Ten pop hits in...
- Rhoda Dakar
Lead singer with 2-Tone ska band the Bodysnatchers; later...
- Albums
- Prince Buster 40 62311.
- Desmond Dekker 40 142638.
- Alton Ellis 46 116669.
- The Ethiopians 41 68709.
Oct 13, 2018 · The ska bands and artists below have played their music all over the world, but they all were formed in Jamaica. If you think the best Jamaican ska band is missing from the list, then feel free to add it at the bottom so it's included with these other great acts. This list has a variety of bands in it, from Jimmy Cliff to Lee “Scratch” Perry.
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ska, Jamaica’s first indigenous urban pop style. Pioneered by the operators of powerful mobile discos called sound systems, ska evolved in the late 1950s from an early Jamaican form of rhythm and blues that emulated American rhythm and blues, especially that produced in New Orleans, Louisiana. A new beat emerged that mixed the shuffling ...
- Reel Big Fish
- Mighty Mighty Bosstones
- Madness
- The Specials
- The Uptones
- No Doubt
- Streetlight Manifesto
- Relient K
- Less Than Jake
- The Toasters
Even music aficionados who aren’t well-versed in ska recognize the name of Reel Big Fish. The band, which formed in Orange County in the 1990s, quickly became a fixture of third-wave ska with their debut album, Turn the Radio Off. Reel Big Fish enjoyed mainstream success with the album and “Sell Out,” the first track of their second album. They had...
The Mighty Mighty Bosstonesborrowed the sound of SoCal ska-punk but with roots in Boston. The band began playing together in 1983 and continued until they decided to call it quits in early 2022. For almost forty years, the original lineup remained, adding various brass and percussion members as their popularity grew. The Bosstones made a cameo appe...
Notable for their two-tone ska style, we have the English band Madness. They formed in 1976 and had quite the success from the onset and into the early 1980s. Even if you’re not a ska fan, you might have heard their songs “House of Fun” and “Our House.” The former was their first, and only, #1 hit in the UK, while the latter topped the chart in Can...
UK-based The Specialsis a ska band with inextricable political ties. Commenting on youth, culture, interpersonal relations, and global events, they contributed perhaps the most foundational ska sound to their country in the 1980s and beyond. They’re known for their 1980 hit single “Too Much Too Young” as well as “Ghost Town,” released the year afte...
Though The Uptoneswere a part of the Northern California ska contingent, they borrowed their sound from the British wave. They were also a band that preserved the Jamaican elements of ska without developing too far from its island origins. The Uptones’s influence in the genre found a place between the initial ‘80s UK sound and pop/reggae from the l...
Though they weren’t a pure ska band, No Doubt’s eclectic blend of musical contributions included a heavy dose of off-beat rhythms and basslines borrowed from the genre. The fusion of punk, new wave, and alternative rock that flowed from their songs gripped the musical culture of the 1990s and got significant MTV airplay. Singer Gwen Stefani and the...
One of the more modern iterations of the ska genre, Streetlight Manifestodidn’t appear on the scene until the early 2000s. Despite various lineup changes and disagreements with their recording label, the group released several albums in the past couple of decades to much acclaim. Founding member Tomas Kalnoky famously utilizes aspects of the 1950s ...
An unassuming band from Ohio, Relient Ksuccessfully crossed boundaries in more than one way. Beginning punk but adding facets of ska, pop/rock, and even gospel, they provided a clean and high-energy sound for ska fans in the late ’90s and early 2000s. They also successfully cornered the Christian listening market for punk rock while also seeing suc...
With their start in Gainesville, Florida, back in 1992, Less Than Jakehas just celebrated their 20th year of making music. The group is a noted Warped Tourveteran and has made other appearances at virtually every big music venue and festival in the past two decades. Commercial success came in 2003 with the release of their album Anthem, which had t...
Though the modern ska sound is most prevalent now, The Toasterswas one of the originators of second-wave ska. This subgenre fused Jamaican reggae and British punk traditions into an American new-wave formula, later copied quite successfully by bands like No Doubt. The Toasters formed in 1981 and tried to release their first EP in 1985 but couldn’t ...
Ska ( / skɑː /; Jamaican: [skjæ]) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. [1] It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat.
During the year leading up to Jamaica’s 50th Independence Day on August 6, 2012, every week we’ll be compiling a list of things celebrating Jamaican foods, music, culture, people and more. We begin with our picks of the Top 50 Ska songs (not in any order). Feel free post your comments with your top Jamaican Ska songs.
