Ska Revival

The broader late-1970s and early-1980s resurgence that reintroduced ska to a new generation, of which 2 Tone was the commercial spearhead but which also embraced trad-leaning and comedic acts working the same offbeat groove. Sharp horn charts, a fast punkish chop, chanted hooks and knees-up singalongs defined the style, played by racially mixed bands to packed halls. Where 2 Tone leaned political, the wider revival ran from good-time nutty-boy fun to faithful re-creations of the Jamaican sound. It kept the afterbeat alive across Britain long enough to seed a worldwide ska underground.

Riding the 2 Tone wave out of Coventry and London in 1979, the revival gathered acts such as Bad Manners, the Bodysnatchers and the Selecter alongside returning first-wave figure Laurel Aitken, whose "Rudi Got Married" made him the "Godfather of Ska" to a new audience, and comic skinhead-reggae veteran Judge Dread. The scene filled the charts and the live circuit, spread to the United States where New York's the Toasters founded the Moon Ska label and to a continental European following, and sustained a touring infrastructure long after 2 Tone itself dissolved. Its momentum fed directly into the international trad-ska and third-wave movements of the following decade.