This is the place to share, discuss, and skank to anything and everything about ska music.
I love Ska but I find myself drifting into genres like Caribbean, calypso, jazz and rhythm and blues when looking for new bands.
So, How do you define Ska?
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In general, similar to the other genres you mentioned, ska has a characteristic backbeat. That off beat emphasis (similar to jazz) but generally played straight (where as jazz/blues is swung) tends to be a core identifier. A unifying element. Sometime ska is swung out, but it tends to follow a more triplet feel than jazz (which has it's swing somewhere in the 60/40 ratio, where triplets are 66/33).
But all of that is really technical honestly, ska (like any genre, but jazz is a great example) breaks these rules all the time and is still considered ska.
A good place to start might be giving us some ska tracks you like, and we can find tracks that are close to that, and then branch out from there.
The basic characteristics of the ska beat are guitar/keys/other on the offbeats, a walking bass line, and drum accents on beats 2 and 4.
Obviously, it doesn't have to be exactly this, but that's the general formula.
Check out this comment from the r/ska sidebar for more info!
According to the dictionary: ska (skä) - noun: a style of fast popular music having a strong offbeat and originating in Jamaica in the 1960s, a forerunner of reggae.
This 👆
it’s like reggae but faster
have I mentioned I’m quite dumbthis is actually a really ingenious description 😆
Literally how I explained it to my fiancee's dad the other night ahaha
Ska music goes like this:
skaskaskaskaska
Rocksteady goes like this:
ska ska ska ska ska
reggae goes like this:
skaska skaska skaska
All about those offbeats and backbeat
Bob Marley explains it
https://youtu.be/nNuyeTd5EAQ
PFFFFT... what does Bob Marley know about ska?
/s
Love
The offbeat
You can add the offbeat to literally any song and boom its ska.
If it doesn't have an offbeat, it's not ska.
I wish more people on this sub would realise this
THE SKANK, BABY!!!!
If it has tika tika
As well as the obvious offbeat rhythm, you have a few other things. Such as you often get the snare and bass drum hitting on the 3rd beat of the bar. Instrumentation is another thing, often you have horns, but also sometimes keys/organ too. However instrumentation plays less of a role than the aforementioned rhythmic aspects.
Punk versions of reggae melodies
Nah that's ska-punk. We talking Jamaica ska. Real ska
If it gets me pumped to eat some mozzarella cheese sticks then it’s ska. Thems the rules.
Ska is the music that played in your head as a kid when u found out u were getting Mozzarella sticks. No but on a serious note, I define Ska as more up tempo reggae, with walking basslines, and Horns. Guitar only plays on the up beats, Drum accents on the 2 and 4. Keep Skankin my friend.
Nah that's ska pop - punk. Ska is from Jamaica. people automatically think punk band but punk didn't exist yet
Ska has walking bass. The bass drum and snare on beats 2+4. The lack of a bass drum on beat 1 helps to set it apart from other beats. Many if not most other styles have the bass drum on beat 1.
So you essentially like OG ska, not 2tone or 3rd wave. I love all 3 but also my family is from the carribean... and partially from england/Ireland so I love it all.
I don't understand all y'all's technical jargon lol I was just gonna say "it's the vibes bro"
The history of ska and musical attributes have been explained and discussed in detail way to many times on this subreddit. Maybe search reddit with keywords.
https://youtu.be/uFZTKFzRhes
As others have written, emphasis on the 2 backbeats in 4/4 time, which are the 2nd & 4th beat of 4, and played relatively fast. Slowed down a lot it becomes Reggae, and in-between is a transitional form call Rocksteady, which the Beatles played around with a few times in songs like I Call Your Name. As you probably know there was a Ska revival in the late 70's and early 80's, with groups like the Police, Madness and the English Beat adopting it, so you can listen to those to hear for yourself.
I didn't know The Police were considered ska influenced but maybe it's bc I mostly listened to them back when I really had no idea what ska was. (actually when I was a little kid I thought it was when you mix together ALL the genres of music) 😂
They're not ska, or reggae, per se, but definitely influenced by them:
https://youtu.be/Ozeuu0PaOxg
https://youtu.be/zPwMdZOlPo8
But if you want to hear an actual ska revival band, you can't do better than Madness:
https://youtu.be/SOJSM46nWwo
https://youtu.be/lLLL1KxpYMA
Btw I can't get the actual videos to embed. How do I do this?
Madness is great. I showed my mom other songs besides Our House, now she's really grown to appreciate ska. (my dad not so much bc he is a grump 💀)
Our House is one of the few Madness songs that I don't really care for. Too Top 40 and "easy listening" and not really typical of their other songs. It always felt kind of hacked together unenthusiastically, as if some record exec said "Hey, could you give us something more conventional so you appeal to a wider audience", which they did, and which worked, but doesn't make it a good song. Even the greatest bands have some clunkers. Now if you want to really surprise people, play them "Night Boat to Cairo" at full blast. That horn gets them every time! (Might not want to try this with dad though.)
Go back and listen to the first ska. That 60s bluebeat stuff from Jamaica. Then listen to rocksteady and early skinhead reggae. You'll be able to tell what's ska after that.