Best ska band of all time?

I don’t really know what makes a song ska — 1-3 time instead of 2-4? — and I couldn’t pick one out if you asked me. They all just sound like songs to me.

 

Reggae mixed with rock, but, for me, there has to be a horn section.

 

The Specials as pioneers and the Bosstones as the most successful.

 

This is, of course, the best answer.

 

If that’s ska, then are the Talking Heads and perhaps even Devo also ska?

 

Is No Doubt ska?

 

Ska?

 

No, they’re posers.

 

I know Madness from that one song that got lots of video play in the early 1980s (Our House). Would never have thought of them as ska --- based on that song.

 

Oingo Boingo was not a ska band, but had a few slight elements of ska in some of their songs.

No Doubt was absolutely a straight-up ska band when they first started. They were kind of moving away from it by "Tragic Kingdom," but some songs - like "Just a Girl" and "Spiderweb" - are absolutely ska.

(And really, the vast majority of ska bands that are any good bail on ska almost immediately to move on to other stuff. I love a great ska band but ska is incredibly limiting. The Specials did two albums before splitting, and the members that remained went in a different direction. The Beat was moving on by the second album. Madness was part of the whole 2-Tone thing and is always mentioned as a great ska band, but really just a few songs on the first album are what you'd call ska. Fishbone was moving away by their first full album.)

 

I’m really surprised I’m the only one who has mentioned the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

From where I sit, they’re by far the most mainstream and successful band in the genre. Let’s Face It is a masterful album — The Impression That I Get, their biggest hit, might be the worst song on it.

More Noise and Other Disturbances is another great one. And they put on a hell of a show in concert over 30-plus years.

 

By "Our House" they had long abandoned ska. But this was an early song: