Wednesday, February 7, 2018

WAS's Awesome New Wave Song Of The Week #15: The English Beat - Save It For Later

The English Beat emerged in the late 70s as part of the first wave of the British ska movement, which featured black & white musicians combing styles to make a new sound that featured the best of rock, reggae and rhythm. Other popular bands of the era with a similar sound were The Specials and The Selector - all of them recorded for the aptly named Two Tone Records. 

The English Beat only released three albums but all of them were great (as evidenced by the fact that the have more compilation albums - 7 - than originals!). I originally bought their first compilation “What is Beat?” on vinyl when it came out in 1983 and listened to it constantly - it’s truly great from start to finish.  

My favorite song on it is from their last studio album “Special Beat Service” in 1982.  It’s an instant classic with a great melody and fantastic sax solo.  It hasn't aged a bit and still appears in movies 35 years later … most recently in Spiderman: Homecoming.  

Like Marc always says about the top of his Top 200, it’s a song I never get tired of listening to!  

-WAS

3 comments:

  1. Thanks Marc... would definitely be a Top-10 of mine !

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    1. It's found a home on my personal playlist, thanks for reminding me it existed!

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