The English Beat - Beat This! The Best of the Beat

Though they ultimately skated far away from the "Two Tone" pigeon-hole that yawned for other bands of their ilk and age, the English Beat were certainly pursuing similar demons as they rose out of hometown Birmingham in 1979, with a ska-punk collision that matched social politics with sociological awareness, then turned the whole thing into a non-stop dance party.



They were promptly rewarded with the first of 13 UK hit singles scored over the next four years, but more surprising was the band's American breakthrough, where they out-performed both the period figureheads of the Specials and Madness, and ultimately hauled themselves into that rarified strata where they came to epitomise "ska" in the same way that the Police represented "reggae." It didn't matter that purists would run a mile at the thought of such a comparison. Read More