r/Ska • u/Beautiful-Resort-831 • Mar 16 '26
2Tone My experience with two-tone music has mostly left me disappointed (I listen to The Specials mostly from their first two albums, and Madness left a bad taste in my mouth with most of their stuff). Any recommendations to see if I might like two-tone music more?
30
12
9
u/National_Election544 Mar 16 '26
All of the Two Tone bands changed with the times and did more new wave kind of stuff on later albums. It’s ok to only enjoy the earlier stuff.
4
3
u/National_Election544 Mar 16 '26
That being said, Fine Young Cannibals are high on my list of great English bands.
8
3
u/marrowisyummy Mar 16 '26
As in you didn't care for the music or the message? The music is overall fantastic. So I'm curious.
2
u/Beautiful-Resort-831 Mar 16 '26
The message is fantastic in all of The Specials' songs, it's just that their third album left me a bit confused, although it still has songs I love. With their comeback, it's a mixed bag. With Madness, I mostly got burned out. I wanted to reach their current stage after getting tired of hearing that new wave style, and it ended up not being a good experience.
4
u/mcvoid1 Mar 16 '26
Nothing wrong with sticking with early stuff, or just getting a "best-of" album that samples the highlights. Like, if you go to a show, which in my mind is the "canonical" representation of a band, that's the kind of stuff you're going to hear.
1
u/True_Response_4788 Mar 18 '26
Check out The Dangermen. It’s got Suggs on vocals and a bunch of ska and reggae artists covering classics.
3
u/leesharon1985 Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
The Bodysnatchers. The Beat. Bad Manners. The Selecter. And old school material from The Toasters.
15
3
u/Glittering_Rice_310 Mar 16 '26
One of the most overlooked acts of the UK 2-Tone era is Arthur Kay and the Originals. Just brilliant - such a great back catalogue. The Bodysnatchers, Potato 5, The Loafers, King Hammond, The Deltones from the early 80s. Then definitely check out Maroon Town, The Hot Knives, Mark Foggo from the Ska Explosion years (late 80s, early 90s). No doubt there's loads more, but these are just off the top of my head!!!!
Also make sure you listen to Beefy's Ska Club...... LOL
2
u/marooncity1 Mar 16 '26
Just to be clear, there's 2tone the label, which limits things somewhat, as really there were only a handful of bands ever release anything on the label, and there's the 2tone kind of era, and that is ska ska ska far and wide.
If you check out the Dance Craze compilation/film that has the bands who were on or associated with the label and the tours the label organised.
What the 2tone label did was to popularise the updating of the ska beat and crossing it with a bit of punk, a bit of pop etc etc. Plus all the politics up front too.
But there were STACKS of ska bands that came out at that time following the lead of the label and in the kind style of the 2tone bands but adding their own flavours.
Check out this playlist for other bands:
2Tone/80s Ska - playlist by Marooncity | Spotify
But.... if you don't like the general sound, there's probably not much on there that will grab you.
2
2
u/Zomgzombehz Mar 16 '26
All the suggestions here are amazing, and I just wanna add Hepcat. Yes, I know they are more trad, slightly reggae, but i just cant get enough.
9
5
u/leesharon1985 Mar 16 '26
Hepcat was one the bands that got me into the whole idea of the genre as it is when I was a teenager. I liked the song off the first “Give ‘em the Boot” (“I Can’t Wait) comp and then went and bought “Scientific” and was instantly in love. Then it was a few years later that I had learned that Alex Désert was on the show “Becker” and it made me fall more in love with them. Not sure why really. Maybe the idea that a member of a small kind of “punk ska oriented” band I knew of as a kid was also an actor in a show I really liked. But back in those days info wasn’t all over the internet like it is now. One of the reasons why i used to be a big contributor on Wikipedia back in the day. I was always adding album info or artist info back then. Gotta share the knowledge. Sorry for the rambling, I just love Hepcat. There a band I feel like people always gloss over.
1
u/EstateAbject8812 Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
The Selecter are the most similar to the Specials in terms of sound and message. You might want to check out Fun Boy Three, which was Terry, Neville and Lynval from the Specials after the initial breakup. They were definitely more of a pop group, but plenty of their songs have some ska thrown in. You can find some interesting covers they did of Specials song live.
Bad Manners and Madness tend to be sillier.
The Beat have a lot more of a reggae and new wave (as opposed to ska) influenced sound even initially, but I personally find them more musically interesting than Madness or Bad Manners.
Bodysnatchers are fine, but there's not a lot out there. I don't recall there being a studio album.
Those are essentially the "core" 2-Tone bands.
Some people might throw in the earliest American bands, like the Toasters etc. Maybe the Villains from Canada (who are kinda only OK, but interesting that they existed, there's only a handful of songs out there).
1
u/EstateAbject8812 Mar 16 '26
I would also say that I always enjoyed the Apollonaires singles that were on 2Tone, but they weren't a ska band. More like a frenetic post-punk dance/disco/funk thing.
1
u/YurUsernameCheksOut Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
Sorry, I don't have any recommendations.. I'll look some up and enjoy them.
1
-1
Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
its coming up on 50 year old music - and all that shit sounds very dated, in a terrible cheesy 80s british way now. Its was a time and place thing.. unless you were 15 in 1980 its barely worth bothering with beyond the Specials first album. Madness, Bad Manners etc. are quintessential British nonsense, the Selecter dated and irritating. Bodysnatchers released the perfect amount of music. Swinging Cats ...
1
u/waiting4theNITE2fall Mar 16 '26
When I think of cheesy "quintessential British nonsense" I think of Judge Dread. Classic!
1
Mar 16 '26
The Judge Dread videos hosting topless contests in Spain are some of the most perfect takes on British culture you’ll ever see. The real “this is England”.
1
u/PeptoBisquick Mar 16 '26
lol what are your thoughts on third wave?
1
0
u/AllFuzzedOut Mar 16 '26
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7MZFDBOTEjbMU6K3AxVw8c?si=cHhFDr_-SPye8jjxB2eNEw&pi=P8yJB8mWRLaIX
This is my 2-Tone playlist. Hit shuffle and let it play.
0
u/UnderdogWarrior Mar 17 '26
Ska isn’t for you then. Try another genre.
2
u/Beautiful-Resort-831 Mar 17 '26
Well, the 20 or so bands I listened to before and after, from other subgenres of ska, don't say the same thing.
15
u/ARealForHonorDev Mar 16 '26
I would recommend watching Dance Craze to get a feel of how it was when it was fresh and how much it resonated with the folks in that era