Ska music reviews

The music is hard to explain. Some would say "ska", or others "pop-reggae." I say it's just plain good!

There are happy songs, there are sad songs. But all of them are fast, jumping songs. Serious mood-music.

Bitter nostalgia is also the theme of Saturday night... that faces the death of the 80s when the world had less time for war and global terrorism and more time for great music, discos at the weekends and incredible video clips.

I received this set as a gift a few years ago, and couldn't be happier about it. This collection is so full of unknown bits of whimsy and little-known cuts by more popular artist that it starts to become more of a treasure chest than a "best of."

Ian Drury of "Sex and Drugs and Rock & Roll" fame appears as vocals on several other cuts including "Kitchen at Parties." This collection is full of simmilar fun little nuggets.

So much of the "alternative" music scene that was largely contained by British borders seems to be archived here, and it's fun to tap into it. Americans (such as myself) who always thought that the band Madness was largely a one hit wonder will be surprised by the spastic "Baggy Trousers," a song I enjoyed so much I have purchased several Madness CDs since hearing it.

While Elvis Costello originally got his start on Stiff, he has only one song here - probably a god thing, as we all have a good idea what he sounds like - leaving more room for the lesser known artists of Stiff.

There is a charming wackiness to this collection and to the whole Stiff attitude. This is a great collection for exploring what the Brits were doing while we tollerated Dexy's Midnight Runners.

Oh! Special bonus: There is a fabulous (FABULOUS) cut of Desmond Dekker's "Isrealites" on disc three. This along merits purchasing this set.

In any case, I'm not old enough to have lived through the era from which these songs sprung, but the appeal of the music easily traverses the generation gap. I haven't even yet explored all of this set and it's already been some of the most fun listening experiences I've had while listening to "older music": Elvis Costello, The Belle Stars, Nick Lowe, Kirsty MacColl...and personal favourite, spunky popster Rachel Sweet. Vivacious and highly entertaining. My only complaint is that the liner notes are somewhat flimsy. Though full of the kind of tongue-in-cheek humour that, apparently, Stiff Records was famous for, the result of the non-journalistic approach is that there's very little real information on the music, the history, the label, and the context, hidden by the cheeky writing and witticisms. I for one would've liked some more detached, professional journalism to inform me of the significance of this music such as in that Amplifier article I had read (which led me to look for this boxed set in the first place). So on the packaging front, much is left to be desired. But the music is uniquely appealing, a world of its own.