Ska subculture: what is it and what are its origins?

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The concept of "subculture" is a relic of the era of perestroika. It appeared when foreign styles of music began to actively penetrate post-Soviet Russia. They also influenced the domestic repertoire. As a rule, subcultures were directly dependent on the music that people within their framework were fond of. It was during this period that the ska subculture appeared, which very quickly gained popularity, but also hastily faded away.

First wave

Officially, ska music is considered an achievement of Jamaican musicians. It originated in the late 50s and became a kind of fruit of the fusion of folk music of the islanders and North American rhythm and blues and rock and roll. At the dawn of the 60s, the first ska songs appeared, which were recorded on records and scattered around the world. Now they can be compared with such styles as blues, jazz, fueled by the rhythms of Jamaica. Actually, this is the same ska in music. Often songs of this kind were called"bluebeats" - derived from the name of the Blue Beat record company.

Gradually, by the mid-60s, the style of ska music began to transform into something more calm, today you can call it the term "soul".

Characteristics

First of all, the originally existing ska subculture (let's call it so conditionally) in Jamaica was a dance phenomenon. Rhythmic music, which absorbed all the delights of the US South and Central American cultures, was performed in bars, restaurants and just on the streets. People everywhere went out in the evening just to relax, dance heartily and enjoy true rhythmic ska.

Along with street musicians, there were also world-famous bands within this style. Among them are Baba Brooks Band, The Skatalites, Laurel Aitken, Derrick Norgan and others.

Second wave

By the mid-70s, the ska subculture migrated from American lands to the territory of the Old World, and more specifically, to Great Britain. It was in this northern country that the youth chose hot Jamaican rhythmic motives and decided to give them a second life. Local bands willingly undertook to cover long-forgotten American songs, recording them on new vinyl records under the 2-Tone label (which is partly why the name "second wave of ska").

Features and performers

It's clear that the British, performing music, whatever it was originally, put a piece of themselves into it. So, Jamaican motifs, combined with blues and jazz, becamealso in the British prudish. A certain restraint, originality, a new uniqueness appeared in them. Ska music has ceased to be street and dance music. It turned into a cult that was recorded and released on records and sold to true connoisseurs of the genre for home listening. Ska bands such as The English Beat, Madness, Bad Manners, The Selecter, Judge Dread and others have succeeded in this business.

Third wave

Well, here we are already dealing with a full-fledged ska subculture, which in its essence and nature has very little in common with those Jamaican and jazz dance motifs. What is a new kind of ska? The genre was formed at the turn of the 80-90s, so it fell under the extensive influence of punk and rock cultures. In fact, this is the most ordinary punk-rod or hardcore, which, as it were, is slightly seasoned with the very Jamaican motifs that have something in common with the work of Bob Marley.

Cultural side of the issue

It was in the 90s that the third wave of the ska subculture became one of the key moments in the development of such genres as punk, hardcore, post-punk, etc. Moreover, these genres developed not only within the framework of musical art, but and more broadly. That is, the very subcultures were formed that had external standards, style, worldview, ideology, etc. In the West, this branch of development was represented by such musical groups as Bim Skala Bim, Operation Ivy, The Uptones, Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

Within our country

Let's just say that in the 90s all of Russia had no time for art. Subcultures had just begun to emerge, and then in the second half of the decade, and their specificity was fundamentally different from the Western one. At that time, mostly everyone was "rockers", and such trends as punk, emo, gothic and that same ska became famous already in the first half of the 2000s.

Ska culture in Russia is represented mainly by teenagers who wore checkered wristbands, skateboarded, stretched tunnels in their ears, and also listened to certain music. Such were the groups Distemper, Clock Work Times and even "Leningrad". It was a kind of mix of punk and emo, which, in fact, was considered impossible. Nevertheless, the subculture existed for several years, and soon ceased to captivate young people.