I don't know how we will remember 2016 in the future...was it a good year?...was it a bad year? I had a lot of really bad things happen in 2016 but I also had a lot of really good things happen.
I don't know how we will remember it, but we definitely will remember 2016.
The underground music scene in general was amazing but the worldwide ska scene was better than I've seen it in all the years of doing this blog.
I'll start with the older bands who have made an impact on the year:
I really like the Norwegian band The Monroes who released Sunday People in 1983 and were obviously inspired by Madness. They are not really a ska band but they did a lot of ska-influenced music in their early days (early-eighties). In 2016 they released a CD of their live performance from London from 1984. The sound quality isn't great but the performance is.
I have featured the U.K. band the Skanxters previously and I lamented that I had their rare cassettes "Spark in the Dark" and "Knights on the Run" but I could not find a copy of their only CD release "Call it a Crime". Thankfully for all of us, bandleader Erin Bardwell has released all three releases for purchase on Bandcamp.
You can buy all three rare recordings for the price of one marked-down modern pop CD HERE.
(Incidentally, Erin Bardwell has a new release slated for 2017!)
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One of the earliest posts I have ever done on this blog was for the British/California band The Hoovers. They released one album in the eighties called "Skin and Blisters" but, seriously, one of my favorite ska records ever released is their EP from 1981 called "Smut and Class".
In 2016 they released a new album called Moonstomper that diverged so much from their original sound that I can't say I really care for it much but, then, they released a collection of five songs that they recorded in 1981 that were never previously released. It's one of my favorite releases of 2016:
Do you remember when you bought the CD "Skankin' 'Round the World volume 3" and you recognized all of the featured bands except for the one called M.S.Q.? Well I did and I did extensive research to find out who they were and what else they released but that went nowhere. I drew the conclusion that they were a live band that didn't record much in the studio - like the French band Verska Vis.
I was happy to find that they are still performing and have actually recorded music in the studio in 2016. I have included their newest song "The Blame Game" - released in 2016 in this download.
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I have posted some of the Suicide Machines' earlier releases on this blog but in 2016 the band made those releases available for download so I will not be re-upping any of the links. You can buy all of their early stuff in this one download HERE.
The Chicago band Rude Guest released 4 cassettes in the 80s with 4 songs on each release. These tapes are nearly impossible to find but, luckily for us, the band worked with Jump Up Records to release all 16 songs that they released on one cassette called Rude Guest: Lost Chicago Ska 1982-1993.
I bought this tape as well as the Crombies cassette that was released in 2016 from Jump Up Records but they were lost in the mail. I wanted to do a review on both of them but the postal service didn't want me to (here's the tracking number 9500111247136350071619 ). Jump Up records did their part but the USPS failed me. "Lost" Chicago ska indeed.
As you know Madness put out a great album this year and I was going to include a song on this download but I removed it to make room for an up-and-coming band instead. It's Madness. You'll own it some day anyway. The Beat - The English Beat - the Rankin' Roger version of the band put out the album "Bounce" and, just like the Madness song, I didn't include it because you will have it some day anyway regardless of my input.
If you ask me what the greatest album of the year 2016 I will have to say "Peg and the Rejected - 4th Wave". I know Marco made the same comment a few weeks back and I disagreed with him but now I agree. This is not to say that any song on this album was my favorite song of the year but it was the album with the most consistently good songs throughout.
I did not include any of their music on this download because you will be buying this release anyway. It would just be redundant.
(Speaking of Marco...another old thing that came back in 2016 was Marco on the Bass
that was dormant for a couple years is now being refreshed with new
posts. Marco's current band Rude Boy George released a fantastic EP this
year which includes one of my favorite songs of the year - a cover of
Howard Jones' "Things Can Only Get Better")
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My favorite song of the year is The Beat From Palookaville's "It's You Voodoo Working". This one is on the download.
1 54-46
2 Solomon Gundie
3 The Israelites
4 Boots
5 Wooly Bully
6 Chatty Chatty
7 Allniters are Allriters
8 What Gives You the Right?
9 Do the Dog
10 Police and Thieves
11 You Made a Monkey Out of Me
12 Ring Dang Doo
13 Rude Dude
14 Skinhead Girl
