From another world. Another universe, even. Back when we used to have fun, and nothing mattered so much. Back in 1979, to be exact:
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOJSM46nWwo&w=550&h=309]
The YouTube comments are all "this is so British…", and they're not wrong, but of course the inspiration here is the late great Jamaican Cecil Bustamente Campbell, aka Prince Buster. Here's his original 1964 One Step Beyond, with Thirties dancers Wilson, Keppel and Betty providing the moves.
And here are my thoughts from a few years back on why ska was so hugely influential on British youth culture, from the Specials to Madness, but reggae somehow wasn't. I suppose what I didn't perhaps emphasise enough in my ruminations is that whereas ska was straight-ahead good-time music, reggae was so closely tied in with Rastafarianism and the black experience in Jamaica that it would have been strange and inappropriate for white groups to take it on. Not that that stopped the Clash, with their execrable version of Police and Thieves.
In fact even black British culture couldn't quite get a handle on reggae. Groups like Aswad and Steel Pulse were OK, but not really a patch on the Jamaican originals. The only genuine UK innovation was Lovers Rock, as Steve McQueen reminded us in last year's Small Axe film. The main song there, and Lovers Rock's biggest hit, was Janet Kay's Silly Games, and, I'm sorry, but, to put it kindly, she really wasn't a singer.
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