SONGS THAT SAVED MY LIFE #4

After being made redundant from first job at 17, i collected my final wages and headed into Nottingham. At the time, i didn't have many albums in my collection, and what few i did have were Greatest Hits and Best Of's, and i was determined to find some more music by the 2-Tone bands i'd been getting into. I was already a huge Madness fan, and had heard The Specials, but very little by any of the other acts associated with them. A lot of those old albums weren't as available as they are now, so it was a joy to find the debut album by The Beat - or The English Beat, as they were titled on the cd, as it was an American import - alongside their 1983 compliation, What Is Beat? (an U.S import also). The only songs i had heard were their first single, "Tears Of A Clown" - a cover of the old Smokey & The Miracles Motown classic - along with its flipside "Ranking Full Stop", and their signature song "Mirror In The Bathroom". Listening to the album at home, i found that it was not only music for the feet but for the head too. The bands' jerky, stuttering staccato rhythms - a clash of punk and reggae - made it nigh-on impossible to stay still, whilst the lyrics were not only instantly singalongable but quite deep for pop music. They told of insecurity, mental illness, unrequited and lost love, racism, unemployment, class divisons, and loneliness. Anti-racism and commentary on the socio-political climate of the time were prominent song subjects for most of the bands associated with the 2-Tone scene, and The Beat were no exception, but they wrote about it a much more subtle and personal way, rather than sloganeering. Their one blatant protest song, "Stand Down Margaret", wasn't a tune in its own right, being part of a medley here with a cover of Prince Busters' "Whine And Grine", one of two PB covers on the album (Rough Rider being the other). From the unmistakable quick-fire drumming that opens "Mirror...", the album drags you onto your feet: the interlocking bass and drums surging through the rhythmic skanking guitars, topped by the nervy vocals and toasting, with jazzy, bluesy sax outbursts demanding your attention. Songs such as "Twist And Crawl", "Noise In This World", and "Click Click" couple pop sensibilities with punk urgency and reggae feeling, whilst the dark and paranoid lyrics stood them apart from their peers. "Best Friend", with its jangly guitars gave a taste of the direction they would take towards the end of their career, where a sound that crossed reggae and dub with a "college radio" indie feeling would see them doing quite well in the States. As with all the 2-Tone bands, covers of Ska and Reggae classics made up part of their album, and apart from the two Prince Buster covers, the album closed with a exuberant version of The Pioneers' "Jackpot", with back and forth vocals and splashes of Hammond organ. The other cover was from the world of Easy Listening, Andy Williams' "Can't Get Used To Losing You", the sparse arrangement of the original lending itself easily to ska arrangement, choppy skanking guitars and a spider-like bassline. Perfection.

The album has, like the other two Beat albums, had the deluxe reissue treatment recently, packed with 12" dub versions, b-sides, BBC sessions and the like. But the original album can't be beat.