The English Beat - Wha'ppen
#327
By Craig Fitzgerald
June 1981
The English Beat
Wha'ppen?
Genre: Two-Tone Socially Conscious Ska/Punk/Dub
Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Craig’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Highlights:
Doors of Your Heart
I Am Your Flag
Get-A-Job
This is the sophomore release from The Beat (The English Beat here, because we are dumb Americans). It’s definitely a more mid-tempo record than “I Just Can’t Stop It, which came out just a year before. It feels like a change in direction from the first album, and it’s a direction I don’t personally like as much as the more punk influenced record that came before it, but this is still a release from a band that was firing on every cylinder.
“What you listen to on your bus could dictate what your next album sounds like,” Ranking Roger said when this record came out. And the band was listening to a lot of West African music on that tour. He called this “the most relaxed Beat album. Californians and surfers, people like that – that album was made for them."
It definitely feels that way. This isn’t a record you put on to go out and get in a street fight.
But the lyrics aren’t mellow, that’s for sure. The best track on the record is “I Am Your Flag”, and the writing does not screw around. This is a song released in times of rioting:
Yes i'll be down your street again quite soon
And don't ignore me when i wave at you
For although i'm looking rather sad
I'm all you've ever really had
And when you're desperate, you will hold me
Hold me to that
Took your hat off in Wisconsin
Took your head in Vietnam
Just dying to become a man
Well i am your flag
“Cheated” is a “fuck you” letter to Rupert Murdoch:
a valentine from a politician
three pages of your dog's ambitions
the stabbed lover and the furious bunny
stare too long and your eyes go funny
yes i agree we're reading tissue paper but
we can talk about real things later
cheated cheated
win a greenhouse to warm your sex life
cheated cheated
i read about the victims crying all night
This is music for 2020, pally.
Here is my problem with this record, though: two or three songs in, they all kind of blend together. The tempos are similar, everything’s drenched in reverb and it’s hard to separate one song from another.
It’s a good album, and I enjoyed listening to it, but I’m not sure I’d listen to it again.
https://open.spotify.com/album/45l9wCVaFLzTHNXK690Jbw?si=UGyZGIbBT8iaqXMChMtu6Q
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