Of the late seventies/early eighties UK "two t one" punk meets ska groups, it was Birmingham's The Beat who were always my favourites. I seriously loved their first two albums and was lucky enough to catch them live on a couple of occasions. They were great. A six-piece, they featured the clever, culturally-relevant lyrics and distinctive voice of Dave Wakeling on shared lead vocals, shared with the ebullient Ranking Roger. The group's distinctive saxophone sound was delivered by Saxa, a veteran Jamaican who was said to be fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty. Nobody really knew. It added to the mythology. The music was essentially ska, full of lilting guitar licks, dub influences and that deep, gloriously tuneful saxophone wailing away beneath nearly every tune. This is, by far, the best Beat compila tion, featuring pretty much all three of their albums, save for one track off the third album, Rotating Head . They may as well have just put it on there. So, let's ge
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