Those in my readership familiar with ska of a mid-to-late-90’s vintage (Vinny, Andies One and II, Brad, I’m looking in your directions) are no doubt (hah!) able to recognize the works of Less Than Jake. One of their seminal albums, titled Hello Rockview, had been running through my head recently, so I pulled it down and burned it to CD. I’m not sure where in the process something went awry, but somehow the bitrates on the entire album got hosed, a fact that escaped my notice until I reached my car and plunked the CD into the CD player. I expected to hear this:
[audio:ltj-metalheads-regular.mp3]
Instead, I heard this:
[audio:ltj-metalheads-fast.mp3]
Heh. While it’s amusing, one ultimately can only take so much ska at roughly 130% speed and pitch – all the trombones sound like trumpets and the singers all sound like a certain rodent trio famed for their lame renditions of classic Christmas songs. It’ll be interesting to see if speed ska takes off as a genre – I may well be in the vanguard of this vast, untapped musical goldmine! *grin*
