The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Let's Face It : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

As mainstream emissaries of the latest ska revival (the fifth or sixth since the great 2-Tone outburst of 1979-81), the Bosstones epitomize everything that is sharp about the movement -- good threads, great energy, unrepentant purism. The one thing that keeps the Bosstones from rewriting ska history? Flat studio records. "Let's Face It" is taut, clean, hyperkinetic -- and a freeze-dried representation of the band's contagious *joie de skank*. It's easy to bounce along to canned frenzy like "That Bug Bit Me" or admire singer Dicky Barrett's wrestling with the subjects of drug abuse and alcoholism in "Nevermind Me" and "Another Drinkin' Song." It's harder to get a lasting grip on music so fast, clean and focused for radio.

"Foundation Ska" is 32 mighty, mighty boss tunes cut by the Skatalites -- Jamaica's answer to the Motown house band and Booker T. and the MG's combined -- in their 1964-65 prime with producer Coxsone Dodd. Rancid fans may be shocked to hear how relaxed, how devilishly sexy, many of the tempos are here. But real ska isn't music for slam dancing; it's for dirty dancing, for slow, cool grinds on a warm island dance floor. Ska's ricochet syncopation was already in vogue in Jamaica when the charter lineup of the Skatalites -- featuring saxophonists Roland Alphonso and Tommy McCook, pianist Jackie Mittoo and trombonist/composer Don Drummond -- put their own stamp on the swing, creating a sun-ripened blend of stateside R&B, big-band brass voicings and that no-hurry sensuality that's oh-so-Caribbean. On their own records and in their prolific appearances as sessionmen, the Skatalites changed the face and funk of Jamaican music forever. The vintage killers here -- like "Simmer Down," "Christine Keeler" and buoyant recastings of the theme from Ex