The English Beat

Certain Songs #428: The English Beat – “Save it For Later”

January 22, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Special Beat Service
Year: 1982

Saving the best Beat song for last. And not just the best Beat song, but one of the very very very greatest songs of the 1980s, and a song that feels like a miracle every single time it comes on.

It’s so simple. It’s so complex. It’s so straightforward. It’s so transcendent. It’s pretty much everything a great pop song should be wrapped up into a single package. Riffs, harmonies, hooks, beats, words. It’s all there.

Certain Songs #427: The English Beat – “I Confess”

January 21, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: Special Beat Service
Year: 1983

And a couple of months after I bought Wha’appen, I completed my purchases of The Beat’s three initial albums with Special Beat Service, which found them continuing to expand their music outwards, mixing songs from every conceivable genre with skill and glee.

That Special Beat Service would pull no punches was defined by the opening salvo, the incandescent soul burner, “I Confess.”

Certain Songs #425: The English Beat – “Best Friend”

January 19, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: I Just Can’t Stop It
Year: 1980

If I Just Can’t Stop It was the living embodiment of Pete Townshend’s maxim that “Rock ‘n’ Roll won’t eliminate your problems, but it will sort of let you dance all over them,” then “Best Friend” just might be the epitome of that embodiment.

With Andy Cox’s 12-string Rickenbacker playing high-and-seek with Dave Wakeling’s six-string and Saxa providing commentary throughout, “Best Friend” soars like the greatest power pop songs of the era.

Certain Songs #424: The English Beat – “Tears of a Clown”

January 18, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: I Just Can’t Stop It
Year: 1980

Because future “Certain Songs” subject “Tears of a Clown” by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles is perhaps the single greatest recording to come out of Motown, the degree of difficulty involved with covering it is extremely high.

And The Beat just nail it: reinterpreting with the same deftness that Jimi Hendrix electrified “All Along The Watchtower” or Hüsker Dü recontextualized “Eight Miles High.”

Certain Songs #422: The English Beat – “Mirror in The Bathroom”

January 16, 2016 by Jim Connelly

Album: I Just Can’t Stop It
Year: 1980

I was a couple of years late getting I Just Can’t Stop It into my life. While it came out in 1980, I didn’t get around to buying it until mid-October 1982.

Since that time, I’ve never stopped listening to it, as its utterly infectious combination of reggae and punk and pop felt completely fresh in 1982 and still resonates today.