From Jamaica, with love: The 10 best ska albums of all time
Under the beating Caribbean sun, bold new sounds began to infect the island of Jamaica back in the 1950s. The post-war consumer boom popularised radios across the island, which brought the infectious sounds of American R&B to widespread audiences. Inevitably, the various musicians, vocalists, and businessmen of Jamaica soon recognised the need to create their own R&B-inspired records, albeit with a distinctly Caribbean twang. The resulting sound was that of ska music, and the musical world was never quite the same again.
Ska used R&B as its basis but quickly began experimenting with rhythm and instrumentation, landing upon a unique sound characterised by off-beat rhythms, blaring horns, and incredible basslines. Along the way, the sounds of traditional Calypso and Caribbean sensibilities crept into the mix, and soon, ska music was the de facto national sound of Jamaica. So, in the wake of Jamaican independence, granted in 1962 and freeing the island from the colonial rule of the British Empire, ska became the sound of freedom, liberty, and celebration.
This growing musical movement was spurred on by the advent of soundsystem culture in Jamaica, with a small group of artists and disc jockeys – the likes of Prince Buster, Coxsone, and Duke Reid, to name a few – amassing dedicated followings by sharing the emerging sounds of ska and rocksteady throughout the island. Soon, Jamaica had developed a vibrant musical culture, and artists like Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker, and Jimmy Cliff flew the flag for ska music all across the world.
Notably, ska found a home in the United Kingdom, brought to the island by the Windrush generation, those who had relocated from the Caribbean to Britain in order to help rebuild the nation following World War II. In fact, ska proved so popular with working-class kids in Britain that it inspired an entire subculture: skinhead. Those early skinheads placed the sounds of Jamaican ska and reggae music at their absolute core, and record labels like Trojan and Island quickly began to service their needs.
With this worldwide spread of ska appreciators, the style inspired multiple generations of performers and underwent countless different stylistic changes along the way. During the late 1970s, for instance, ska inspired the formation of the 2 Tone scene, which blended traditional Jamaican ska with British punk, creating an entirely new sound which fostered racial unity and togetherness at a time of colossal divides. Some years later, the 2-Tone scene had its own offspring, third-wave ska, which was largely concentrated in the United States and tended to place more emphasis on punk than traditional ska.
Even today, ska still captivates audiences with its endearingly off-beat rhythm and commanding grooves. For your listening pleasure, we have compiled the ten all-time greatest ska albums, focusing predominantly on those original ska sounds emanating from Jamaica, which still contain the true spirit of the movement.
The 10 best ska albums of all time:
The Skatalites – ‘Ska Boo-Da-Ba’ (1966)
Any discussion surrounding ska music and its origins in Jamaica is incomplete without a healthy mention of The Skatalites. It was in 1964 that the band performed in public for the first time, but their history stretches back a few more years, performing as a house band for various studios across Jamaica, most notably Studio One, and carving out the sounds of countless hit ska singles. Before too long, The Skatalites were recording music in their own right, and the 1966 record Ska Boo-Da-Ba, released via Top Deck, is the perfect encapsulation of their pioneering sound.
Containing the blueprint for virtually all future ska, rocksteady, and reggae releases, the 1966 album was an absolute triumph for the band. Although purely instrumental, the record is evocative of that early ska age, and its unavoidable toe-tapping rhythm is just impossible to ignore. The Skatalites have an incredibly rich, enduring history in ska, but this sophomore effort remains perhaps their best, both for its pioneering quality and for its lasting legacy on the scene.
Dandy Livingstone – ‘Your Musical Doctor’ (1970)
A master of rocksteady rhythm, Dandy Livingstone is an essential figure in the history of ska music. Having relocated to London from Jamaica during his teenage years in the early 1960s, Livingstone quickly set about introducing the streets of London to the sounds of the Caribbean. By the end of the decade, Livingstone was signed to Trojan Records and was worshipping within the ska-obsessed skinhead subculture, which was blossoming across the United Kingdom. Your Musical Doctor arrived in 1970, at the peak of skinhead’s cultural relevancy, and captured the lasting appeal of the Kingston-born performer.
Although the record doesn’t contain the tracks ‘Suzanne Beware of the Devil’ or ‘Rudy, A Message To You,’ which are routinely held aloft as his defining efforts, Your Musical Doctor remains an indisputable ska masterpiece. For a musical style which is often reduced to unwavering upbeat rhythm, the album contains an impressively broad range of sounds and emotions, from heartbreak to youthful optimism, exercising the diverse talents of Livingstone and making the album one of the most captivating ska releases of the time.
Various Artists – ‘Tighten Up Volume 2’ (1969)
Including a compilation album might raise a few eyebrows, but the budget-friendly Tighten Up series is essential listening when it comes to the world of ska. The first instalment of the compilation series came in 1968 and ran until 1973. Of the eight albums released in the series, though, the second volume stands out as the most culturally significant. Over the course of 12 tracks, the album captured the diversity, power, and universal appeal of the blossoming ska scene, with a track listing boasting names like The Pioneers, Joya Landis, the aforementioned Dandy Livingstone, and the soon-to-be mentioned Upsetters.
Once again, the cultural significance of this particular release is rooted in the skinhead subculture, with Tighten Up providing an accessible, affordable manner for working-class kids to get into ska music without having to seek out obscure or expensive singles. Even without its ties to the skinhead scene, though, Tighten Up Volume 2 remains an incredible collection of ska anthems from one of the most exciting times for the style.
The Ethiopians – ‘Woman Capture Man’ (1970)
Led by Leonard Dillon, The Ethiopians arrived on the scene towards the end of Jamaica’s ska age, but that didn’t make their existence any less impactful. Having relocated to Kingston from the coastline during his adolescent years, Dillon found comradary in the form of future reggae icon Bob Marley, and his group The Wailers. This essentially acted as his musical education, and the core inspiration for Dillon to form his own group, The Ethiopians, during the mid-1960s.
A vocal group capable of incredible harmonies, The Ethiopians were instantly welcomed into the ska canon and, like many of the artists included on this list, quickly found an audience across the Atlantic in the UK, too. It was there that Trojan Records released the band’s elusive third album, Woman Capture Man, in 1970. Clearly, the band’s vocal performances form the highlight of the release, but virtually every aspect of the release is near-perfect – it is no surprise that original vinyl copies of the album still fetch a pretty penny on the second-hand market.
The Upsetters – ‘Return of Django’ (1969)
Even if you are not well-versed in the expansive history of ska and reggae music, you have probably heard the name Lee “Scratch” Perry at one point or another. One of the most respected and prolific music producers of all time, Perry worked alongside an incredible wealth of artists, from Bob Marley to The Clash. However, some of his best work was created alongside his house band, The Upsetters. Eventually, the band would go on to back Bob Marley full-time on albums like Soul Rebels, but they also recorded their own original material prior to that, and their second record Return of Django is a particular masterpiece.
Fittingly, given that the album’s title is derived from the cult spaghetti western film, the music contained on it is wonderfully cinematic, with instrumental soundscapes cultivating a captivating narrative of ska euphoria. The title track is clearly the highlight of the record, but the remainder of the track listing is utterly brilliant, reflecting the early innovations of Perry and the transformative power of ska.
Marcia Griffiths – ‘Sweet and Nice’ (1974)
Like many mid-century musical genres, ska is routinely dominated by male figures, as has been shown throughout this list thus far. However, there has never been any shortage of pioneering women within the field of ska, either. Kingston-born Marcia Griffiths is among the most prominent examples, cutting her teeth performing with Byron Lee and the Dragonaires before signing as a solo artist for the iconic Studio One during the 1960s. She certainly made her mark on the ska landscape, with one of many highlights being her cover of ‘Young, Gifted, and Black’ alongside Bob Andy, which reached five in the UK charts in 1971.
The 1974 album Sweet and Nice is undoubtedly Griffiths’ magnum opus album, though. Released via Trojan Records (I promise there are albums on this list which weren’t) in 1974, the album arrived towards the tail-end of traditional ska’s relevance. Nevertheless, Griffiths expertly bridged the gap between the relatively disparate styles of ska, reggae, and lovers’ rock, all performed with an unparalleled level of passion and soul.
Prince Buster – ‘I Feel The Spirit’ (1963)
It is not an egregious claim to say that none of the albums on this list would exist were it not for the efforts of Cecil Bustamente Campbell – Prince Buster, to you and me. As a young man in Kingston, Buster worked sourcing new records for the Coxsone sound system, but quickly graduated to become a recording artist in his own right. These early recordings laid the foundations of the entire ska sound, and his production work was just as essential. It should go without saying, therefore, that his 1963 debut album had an earth-shattering impact both on ska and on Jamaican art and culture in general.
Released through Blue Beat Records in the UK, the album contained Buster’s early singles like ‘Madness’, which reflected his power as a ska songwriter during those early years. As you might have guessed, that particular song went on to inspire the name of the 2 Tone outfit Madness, who famously also covered Buster’s song ‘One Step Beyond’. What’s more, I Feel The Spirit helped to establish the sounds of Blue Beat in the UK, where Prince Buster became an instant smash hit among certain factions of the blossoming mod subculture.
Desmond Dekker – ‘This Is Desmond Dekkar’ (1969)
From the progenitor of ska to one of the scene’s most successful sons, Desmond Dekker was a global ambassador for ska and rocksteady music back in the 1960s. He became one of the first Jamaican artists to have a number-one hit in the UK charts, and a top-ten in the US, with ‘Israelites’ in 1968, but it is his typo-riddled 1969 album This Is Desmond Dekkar which we are choosing to focus on here. With ‘007 (Shanty Town)’ as the album’s opening track, the vocalist wastes no time in establishing the mood and attitudes of the record.
While many other ska artists of the time were attempting to mould their sound to reach wider audiences across the world, Dekker remained rooted in the sounds and traditions of Kingston, Jamaica. He routinely sang in Jamaican patois, and his work always tried to reflect the social realities of life on the island – ‘Shanty Town’ being only one such example. What shines through on this album, too, is the incredible vocal prowess of the performer, boasting an impressive range and taking on a multitude of different moods over the course of 12 Trojan-released tracks.
The Specials – ‘Specials’ (1979)
For the bulk of this list, we have focused on the traditional sounds of first-generation Jamaican ska, but it would be remiss not to include the efforts of The Specials, given that they are unquestionably one of the greatest ska bands to ever grace the airwaves. On their 1979 debut album, the Coventry band blended those Caribbean rhythms with the abrasive anti-authortiy attitude of punk, spawning an entirely new subculture in the form of the 2-Tone ska movement (which, in itself, spawned incredible ska outfits in the form of The Selecter, The Beat, The Bodysnatchers, and Madness).
Specials includes original material by the Midlands outfit placed alongside interpretations of tracks by the likes of Dandy Livingstone, Toots and the Maytals, and Andy & Joey, among others. Not only did this inspire a resurgence in the cultural relevance of ska, but it also introduced entirely new generations and audiences to its enduring appeal. Highlighting the dismal social conditions of the time period, while also paying homage to the legacies of the various Caribbean artists who had inspired them, The Specials’ debut album is an absolute masterpiece which unites all three waves of ska excellence.
Toots and the Maytals – ‘Funky Kingston’ (1975)
From the opening bars to the closing moments, I would defy anyone to listen to this album – or any record recorded by The Maytals – while sitting completely still. Toots Hibbert first formed the Maytals as a vocal trio in 1962, but the group quickly expanded along with its influence over the music scene of Jamaica. The band were right in the middle of the post-independence ska explosion, and they took full advantage. From genre-defining anthems like ‘54-46 That’s My Number’ to their inclusion on the soundtrack album of The Harder They Come, the impact of the group is impossible to overstate.
Virtually every album recorded by the band between 1964 and 1976 would be worthy of an inclusion on this list but, for our money, Funky Kingston is the band’s ultimate masterpiece. Two versions of the album exist, separated by two years and an altered track listing, but the 1975 version is arguably the defining version; after all, it includes the track ‘Pressure Drop’, which is arguably the greatest ska song of all time.
Their fantastic cover of ‘Louie Louie’ gives the album something of a rock and roll edge, which is not often seen in first-wave ska. The prevailing theme of the record, however, is one of working-class communities, unity, and joy, reflected by the title track along with songs like ‘Time Tough’, too. It is rooted in the communities of Kingston, Jamaica, but Funky Kingston has rightly been adopted by the world as the ultimate ska masterpiece album.
