The American debut of The English Beat – aka the UK group The Beat, who'd been making some big waves with import 45s on the 2Tone label, the burst forth on our US market with a slight shift in name, due to another group hogging their original moniker on our side of the Atlantic! That bit of backstory hardly need matter, though – as the group wear their English loud and proud here, setting off a huge ska revival as they blend Jamaican roots with London attitude in the post-punk years – stacking up a set of classics that continue to groove many turntables all these many years later. Titles include "Mirror In The Bathroom", "Hands Off She's Mine", "Twist & Crawl", "Big Shot", "Best Friend", and "Jackpot". (Rock, Reggae) LP, Vinyl record album

The American debut of The English Beat – aka the UK group The Beat, who'd been making some big waves with import 45s on the 2Tone label, the burst forth on our US market with a slight shift in name, due to another group hogging their original moniker on our side of the Atlantic! That bit of backstory hardly need matter, though – as the group wear their English loud and proud here, setting off a huge ska revival as they blend Jamaican roots with London attitude in the post-punk years – stacking up a set of classics that continue to groove many turntables all these many years later. Titles include "Mirror In The Bathroom", "Hands Off She's Mine", "Twist & Crawl", "Big Shot", "Best Friend", and "Jackpot". (Rock, Reggae) LP, Vinyl record album

There's been plenty of great reggae collections issued over the years, but this excellent series seems to do a better job than most – in part because it bypasses the hits, and ends up pulling together some wonderful work from the wider world of the Jamaican 7" single! The tracks on here were originally issued on a variety of labels that now live under the Trojan umbrella – imprints that include Randy's, Amalgamated, Grape, Treasure Isle, and Duke – and with that variety of sources, there's also a great variety of sounds too – nicely gritty work that booms out of the speakers nice and loud – as you'll hear on cuts that include "Soup (version)" by JJ All Stars, "La La" by The Inspirations, "Arabian Dub" by Tommy McCook & The Supersonics, "Red Ash" by Carl Bryan, "Lottery Spin" by Zap Pow, "Warricka Hill" by The Love Generation, "Reggae Dance" by Owen Gray, "Feel All Right" by The Cables, and "A Testimony" by Upsetter Pilgrims. LP, Vinyl record album

The American debut of The English Beat – aka the UK group The Beat, who'd been making some big waves with import 45s on the 2Tone label, the burst forth on our US market with a slight shift in name, due to another group hogging their original moniker on our side of the Atlantic! That bit of backstory hardly need matter, though – as the group wear their English loud and proud here, setting off a huge ska revival as they blend Jamaican roots with London attitude in the post-punk years – stacking up a set of classics that continue to groove many turntables all these many years later. Titles include "Mirror In The Bathroom", "Hands Off She's Mine", "Twist & Crawl", "Big Shot", "Best Friend", and "Jackpot". (Rock, Reggae) CD

There's a wonderful sense of sound going on throughout this obscure set of dubs from the Bullwackies crew – music that's got some of the headier, bassier sounds of the generation – but which is also dappled with lighter touches at points, especially on keyboards – which makes the whole thing sparkle with a really timeless vibe! Joe Auxumite serves up vocals on about half the tracks on the set, and the instrumentals are equally great – working together with the more lyrical numbers to make a set that's maybe a lot more well-conceived overall than you might expect. Titles include "Shining Star", "Rain From The Cloud", "Simple Little Woman", "Troubled Land", "Recording Connection", "United Rock", and "Black World". CD