The 1981 Listening Post - The English Beat - Wha'ppen

 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

The 1980 Listening Post - The English Beat - I Just Can't Stop it

The English Beat - I Just Can't Stop It

#183

by Brian San Marco

The English Beat

I Just Can’t Stop It

Genre: Ska, Mod – I was never really sure what that meant.  Modern?  Wasn’t New wave modern at the time?

Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5 After group consideration, it has been bumped to a 5

Brian’s Rating 4.75 our of 5 stars – minus .25 for being a victim of 80’s recording styles

**

Allen’s Highlights:

Mirror in the Bathroom

Best Friend

Brian’s Highlights: 

Hand’s Off She’s Mine

Ranking Full Stop

Whine and Grine/Stand Down Margaret

I feel like there are two types of people in this world.  Those who like Ska and those who don’t.  I happen to be one that does.  At least most Ska.  At least THIS Ska.  The English Beat came around when there was magic in the air for reggae and Ska. These sounds started influencing rock music in the years prior, but it was the English Beat who took it to the next level.  They influenced a generation of 80s kids and were a trailblazers who along with KROQ radio influenced those same kids to dress a certain way and listen to a whole new wave of music.

As soon as I heard Hand’s Off, She’s Mine”, I was taken back to the beginning of the KROQ days in Los Angeles.  The English Beat helped build KROQ into a powerhouse of modern music and then sustain them as the influence of The Beat grew and redeveloped into acts I loved almost equally: General Public and The Fine Young Cannibals.

Songs like “Mirror In the Bathroom”, “Hand’s off, She’s Mine”, and “Can’t Get Used to Losing You” tent pole an album that makes you move one way or another.  These are real players and real instruments through and through.  “Hand’s Off” reminds me of being a kid, steel drums and all.  But honestly, it’s the second half of the record that really spotlights the intricacy and diversity of their sound.  The 4-on-the-floor Ska of “Twist and Crawl” and The Tears of a Clown” lead into the backbeat reggae of “Rough Rider”.  By “Whine and Grine”, I’m passing the doobie, and then the dance party starts all over again.  Looking back on it, I understand the influence it had on me as a player and a stoner.

https://open.spotify.com/album/08zjJfP4f6cXGxscvztbvh?si=Q_LdKVO1TNGrznrWmVj_gw