THE BEAT GOES ON (2016 TO 2018)

The Beat (or the English Beat as they were known in North America) were a 2 Tone Ska revival group formed in Birmingham England in 1978. They released three albums and a dozen singles before breaking up in 1983. David Steele and Andy Cox went on to form The Fine Young Cannibals while Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling went on to form General Public.

After releasing three General Public albums Wakeling and Rogers parted ways. Each of them doing various projects, solo albums and soundtracks until eventually returning, albeit separately, to the Beat. Until recently, two different versions of the band toured fairly frequently: "The English Beat starring Dave Wakeling" (based in California) and "The Beat Featuring Ranking Roger" (based in the UK.) Sadly, Ranking Roger died from lung cancer in the Spring of 2019.

Recently, I listened to the three albums by the two separate Beat bands and liked quite a bit of it. The Dave Wakeling Beat had better songwriting overall but I definitely did not like all of the music. So I made a little playlist that combined my favourite songs from Ranking Rogers last two Beat albums (Bounce and Public Confidential) with Dave Wakeling's latest English Beat album (Here We Go Love) to create a sort of final Beat album that had both of these extraordinary musicians together(ish) again.

 

Tracklisting:
Heaven Hiding
The One And Only
Public Confidential
If Killing Worked
On My Way
You're Stuck
Walking On The Wrong Side
You Really Oughtta Know
Who's Dat Looking
My Dream
Here We Go Love!
A Good Day For Sunshine
How Can You Stand There
Busy Doing Nothing
Drive Her
Never Die

We said we would never die
But what did we know?
Taken away from me. and now
How I miss you so