POLL: Which left a bigger shit-stain on the '90s? Swing or Ska

Seriously, fuck this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-m4HpnzAHA

90s ska was horrid.

But it might not be worse than this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBNy3l3Me5o

Ska okay because it's part of the tradition of modern pop music I guess, plus as a rhythmic option it's kind of undeniable and doesn't have to sound arch or forced, whereas Swing mostly relies on awful misappropriated signifiers of an era alien to the understanding or memory of its revivalists. i.e. Ska-punk is reappropriation but all modern Swing is pastiche.

First of all, if you're gonna deploy the empty phrase "the likes of" you need to cite a minimum of two more acts. The Cherry Poppin' Daddies were a novelty act with one hit. Now cite a few more. I'll help you out by spotting you the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

Secondly, I don't wanna turn into Chuck Eddy, but I'll for damn sure take novelty hits over the mainstream alternative rock of the 1990s. Take the collected works of Nirvana, grind the CDs into shards and pound 'em up Billy Corgan's ass with a mallet.

I was just cutting to the chase... you want more shitty swing revival namechecks? BSO, yes. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Royal Crown Revue. I'll give Squirrel Nut Zippers a pass because they were just kind of awesome in a trapped-in-amber sort of way.

i dig ska to an extent -- swing revival is just...

I almost feel bad calling these ska punk bands "ska," though. Just because you're mixing horns and guitars with dancehall time signatures doesn't make them proper ska. It just makes them garbage.

Squirrel Nut Zippers were awesome. Can't recall at the moment a ska band which I enjoyed back then. Does Sublime count?

third-wave ska is/was dorky and embarrassing, but it produced some catchy tunes.

there's something malevolent and evil about the swing revival though.

I fell for both for hot minute in middle school and I suppose I regret my crush on the lead singer of Save Ferris, but it was a very short-lived and certainly minor misstep compared to the year I spent watching Limp Bizkit's "Faith" video nearly every day. There's your shitstain.

see by 90s ska revival i was thinking more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVuORePKQQ4

or better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5Dxpd4ThfY

the 90s were plenty big enough for multiple shitstains

also i still hear goddamned brian setzer songs on in-store/restaurant/public space playlists all the time, whereas the closest you get to hearing any third-wave ska these days is old no doubt tunes, which i think even non-fans would have to agree were a magnitude better than setz and his briefly lived but oddly enduring ilk, so in summary, swing.

will rep for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBrBzdTLjig

if this doesn't drive you to murder, then you're beyond help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASYjHQIatc8

The Slackers live w/ Susan Cadogan five or six years ago was fucking great, pretty sure no-one posting on this thread can school those guys on ska and the like

It really was fascinating in a really horrifying way to see how quickly that swing revival took over and, just as quickly, faded away again. I mean, really, was there ever any fucking reason for seven(!) different campus bars in Champaign-Urbana to host their own weekly swing nights? Of course fucking not. It was ridiculous and unsustainable. I kinda wish I would have gotten to know the few dudes I saw that showed up all over town wearing fedoras to dance to Brian Setzer, mostly because I'm still oddly curious to know what they did after that scene dried up.

ska concerts = more fun too

I'm still oddly curious to know what they did after that scene dried up.

Watch Mad Men but not get the joke?

Ska. Swing was a flash in the pan and then it was gone, but Ska really hung around, especially the shitty ska punk variety. Swing was like someone did a fart, then a window opened and the smell cleared, while Ska was like something had died and was rotting under the carpet.

xxxxxpost couldn't even make it a full minute before HULK SMASH

There are still swing nights here in London, e.g at Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes and in hipsterville central Stoke Newington.

i'll stan for ska. Streetlight Manifesto are great!

B-b-but Swingers has multiple memorable moments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOFkcj4iDvM

Less Than Jake blew tho.

Also Sublime, No Doubt, Rancid all classic imo.

Swing had some good stuff, like that "Hey Pachuko" {sic?} song from The Mask. It's fun to drum along to, which I did countless times in my high school jazz band. I even got a standing ovation once after I did the drum solo.

Fuck the ska revival. Oooh cool, you've put horn arrangements into your punk rock. Whooptie fucking do.

HATE Sublime. But I also hate stoners and hacky sackers, so those things kind of go hand in hand (at least in my mind). Have love for Rancid and No Doubt, though.

did swing have that much of an impact in the 90's? because ska is still pretty huge with the youth in my experience. i was in ninth grade five years ago and we all went to ska shows, and were in a ska band for a bit, and there were a lot of kids at those shows. looking back it was kind of a ridiculous anachronistic way to have spent my adolescence but it was loads of fun. some dudes still cling to leftover crack & co but that's basically the worst shit of them all. operation ivy are good.

Fuck the ska revival. Oooh cool, you've put weak, spindly horn arrangements into your tuneless mall-punk rock. Whooptie fucking do.

Whooptie f---g do is right.

def the best stuff from ska-punk slays the best stuff from swing-revival to the point where i'm guessing johnny fever wasn't even thinking about operation ivy when he started this thread

How '90s ska punk began (I saw it happen)

4 friends: "Hey, we're gonna start a rock band."
2 other friends: "We want to be in your band too, but all we have and know how to play are this trumpet and trombone from school."
4 friends: "Fine, we'll just call ourselves ska."

Not an Op Ivy fan. xp

The swing revival was "Zoot Suit Riot," "Hey Pachuko," and "Jump Jive and Wail" and maybe some Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and absolutely NOTHING else. And now that I think about it, I'm not even sure "Hey Pachuko" counts, since that came out in like '94.

xp mordy - ya definitely. also most of the album is punk songs anyways.

The swing revival didn't have as much to do with the bands themselves as it did with all the music's infiltration of tv/radio advertising, local swing nights in every town in america, and boys and girls/men and women dressing the part because flannel and combat boots had lost their appeal.

Will admit, my xmas music collection still count a Big Bad Whooptie Fucking Doo Doo Ding Dong Daddy cd in it, and I will lazily play it again come xmas 2010.

i don't think it would be controversial to say

a) 90's swing revival is, on the whole, much shittier than 90's ska revival

b) 90's ska revival had a wider and more lasting impact than 90's swing revival

depends on how you measure shit-stains

the swing thing being in the air got a lot of us gen-x types to take dance lessons that we never would have otherwise. i only did a few courses and wish i'd done more, but as a couples date-night thing it was fun, and at least i know a few fundamentals i didn't know before. the actual neo-swing music was mostly dire and i never owned any of it, but as a brief pop-cult fling swing revivalism was a good time. (one nice memory: this one hotel in knoxville had a monthly big-band dance with a live orchestra that as far as i know had been going on for years attracting the same aging crowd. and suddenly there was an infusion of all these young people, and the older couples totally loved having all these kids around to show off to. it was sweet. third-wave ska didn't produce anything like that that i know of, though i suppose there may have been some multi-generational skanking going on somewhere.)

The 90's were full of talk about the "next big (musical) thing" (grunge, electronica, etc.) but I was stunned when people seriously tried to pass off swing as some sort of game-changer.

Can't find that Gap ad w/ Louis Prima's song on youtube :-(

I my mind, the two are pretty interchangeable. Didn't a lot of these swing bands do ska too? Swing dancing is pretty fun though.

I think the real answer to this question is post-grunge though. I mean, that one still dominates alt-rock radio through its influence. Whens the last time you heard a swing or ska song on the radio outside of retro/specialty programming? But turn on any "current rock" station and you'll be bombarded with Seether, Three Days Grace, Flyleaf, Puddle of Mudd type bullshit. That shit-stain has yet to fade.

The swing revival was "Zoot Suit Riot," "Hey Pachuko," and "Jump Jive and Wail" and maybe some Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and absolutely NOTHING else.

You're forgetting Squirrel Nut Zippers' "Hell."

Yeah, I think my old roommate's twenty-plus compilations of swing revival music points to it being a lot more than just a handful of singles. Man so much of that shit was terrible though.

Let me guess, nineteen of those were on a Cleopatra Records sub-label and all the bands were tenth-tier hair metal acts 'reinventing' themselves.

Well I never really investigated them too deeply, but I would imagine you are right. I just remember they went by names like Swing This Baby and had covers like this:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000I0Q8.jpg

Ska Skank Redemption guys

from WAY upthread:

It really was fascinating in a really horrifying way to see how quickly that swing revival took over and, just as quickly, faded away again. I mean, really, was there ever any fucking reason for seven(!) different campus bars in Champaign-Urbana to host their own weekly swing nights? Of course fucking not. It was ridiculous and unsustainable. I kinda wish I would have gotten to know the few dudes I saw that showed up all over town wearing fedoras to dance to Brian Setzer, mostly because I'm still oddly curious to know what they did after that scene dried up.

my armchair socio-economist take: yeah, in a way the swing revival (such as it was) was a good metaphor for the entire dot.com bubble. these bubbles both appeared and disappeared @ roughly the same time and worked on underpants gnome logic. at least we got cheap high-speed bandwidth outta the dot.com bubble; hard to think of anything good that came outta the neo-swing trend.

an example: this one club in my town circa 1998-1999 used to have weekly swing nights. since then, it's been a total bottle-service guido-pandering joint. dunno which incarnation is aesthetically worse, though pandering to NYC-metro area guidos definitely seems like an infinitely more sustainable & profitable business model than pandering to Dean Martin/Louis Prima wannabes.

both were fairly harmless, no? of the two, ska was more annoying simply cuz it is aesthetically less pleasing to me, and swing at least brought the style to the kids who were much too young...can't say I listen to either, or give a rat's ass about either.

i am more hostile to ska revival b/c it was more inescapable during the late 90s. plus i had nothing but hate & contempt for Sublime after hearing their indefensible-by-any-standard "date rape" song which carried over the entire neo-ska thing in my mind anyway. the swing revival was just a weird passing blip.

sublime fail for their "romeo" cover which was essentially just them saying "OMG DESCENDENTS WERE STUPID TO NOT KNOW THIS SONG WORKED BETTER AT A FASTER TEMPO"

anyway, i agree most w/ the numerous folks on this thread who pointed out that neo-grunge bands were infinitely worse than either of the ska or swing revivals. esp. since we still aren't rid of neo-grunge (i.e., Nickelback et. al.). i can only praise the kids from back in the day who at least were looking for a fun alternative to late-90s "alternative," even if the music that they got into was just as shitty.

I'm not joking. I was googling to see if someone had actually taken this name and someone did.

So that means there's an ACTUAL ska-swing band???

So that means there's an ACTUAL ska-swing band???

Why is that so surprising? Ska and swing hit the mainstream at almost exactly the same time, of course there'd be cross-genre fusions. Ska bands played swing songs (esp. the Bosstones), swing bands played ska songs (esp. the Daddies), and there were tons of only-lasted-a-month garage bands that fused the two together. From what I can tell, only one group achieved moderate success, a Christian ska-swing band called The W's, who are exactly as God-awful as you would expect, no pun intended.

Just for that, I'm voting for BOTH in the poll. :/

From what I can tell, only one group achieved moderate success

Well, that's why it's surprising. Needless to say, I've never heard of The W's, thank (their) god.

their indefensible-by-any-standard "date rape" song which carried over the entire neo-ska thing in my mind anyway.

No idea why you would think this song is indefensible. Do you actually approve of date rape or something?

I mean, I could see getting upset about one of their songs that advocates drinking or drug-use, but this is a song about the justice system working for women. Oh no, people shouldn't write songs about that.

Ha! I completely forgot about that movie.

― Johnny Fever, Friday, February 26, 2010 1:59 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Swing Heil! Swing Heil!

Since I already revealed on this thread that I was a p embarrassing teenager, I may as well go ahead and admit that Swing Kids was my favorite movie for a while in HS. Granted this was largely due to the fact that Bale and Leonard looked damn hot in those suits but yeah, still. I recently found a photo album I kept when I was 14/15 and on the inside cover I'd doodled the following "The Cure, Yaz, Depeche Mode and . . . Swing Kids."

ha! that is funny.

No idea why you would think this song is indefensible.

Lyrical intent aside, it is really shitty.

No idea why you would think this song is indefensible. Do you actually approve of date rape or something?

yes, i am aware that the song is anti-date rape (how very white of them, as my grandparents would say). doesn't stop it from basically being a extended fag joke (b/c he "gets it in the end," you see, prison rape is so funny), a smug Cautionary Tale for drunk frat-boys who like fag jokes and weren't above a little date-rape themselves (and probably missed the point [such as it was]). plus the music was shit (even by Sublime's standards).

Can we seriously stop with the "guys who like questionable music are frat-boy date-rapers" meme please? I mean, fuck, ILX should be a little bit above that. It's a shitty song, but at least hate it for the many, many legitimate reasons.

I sure do hate those frat boys

I was an assistant manager at a record store in a small resort town during the 90s, and in a rare moment of market awareness, my boss had us create a separate ska section to meet customer demand. We then got a reputation as having a lot of ska CDs for sale (like, two rows of them!) which attracted the most annoying clientele ever. Now my feelings about ska as a music are way too caught up in my residual feelings of rage about the many times I had to chase some mall punk tourist junior high schooler in a Less Than Jake t-shirt and JNCO shorts down the boardwalk to retrieve stolen ska CDs.

man you could probably fit a whole ton of ska CDs into a pair of JNCOs

Definitely the shorts of choice for the shoplifting youth of America. At least the swing revival costume involved tighter pants and in my experience, no dude ever tried to hide a Squirrel Nut Zippers CD in his pompadour.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 14, 2009

CHERRY POPPIN’ DADDIES TO RELEASE TWO ALBUMS IN SEPTEMBER

In celebration of the bands 20th year in the music business, Eugene, Oregon’s horn-heavy, genre-bending, multi-platinum-selling Cherry Poppin’ Daddies are giving store shelves a double shot of musical goodness in September: both “Susquehanna” and “Skaboy JFK: the Skankin’ hits of the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies” are scheduled for release on September 29, 2009, on Rock Ridge Music/Space Age Bachelor Pad Records. “Susquehanna” will finally receive its national release, as it was previously only available on the band’s website, while “Skaboy JFK” is a compilation of new ska tracks with older Cherry Poppin’ Daddies ska songs (some of which have been re-recorded) in a collection that comes off like a classic of the genre.

Says CPD band leader Steve Perry: “We are excited to be working with Rock Ridge Music on the release of ‘Skaboy JFK,’ because we have had a previous successful working relationship with their CEO Tom Derr, while we were both at Universal Records. Rock Ridge has done a great job promoting and distributing Reel Big Fish records (our ex label mates) and this record is directed at some of the same markets, so it’s a perfect fit for us. We also made a deal to have Rock Ridge distribute and promote our 2008 recording, ‘Susquehanna,’ which had previously not received distribution outside of our web site. This is our coming-out party after a bit of a self-imposed hiatus, and we are happy to be with a company with such great industry bona fides.”

“As has been done by Steve and CPD, Rock Ridge again sees the opportunity to break some ground, break some rules, and break into dance," says Rock Ridge Music CEO Tom Derr about the upcoming Cherry Poppin’ Daddies releases.

“Susquehanna” brings together the Daddies West Coast retro style and Latin influences: Flamenco, Greaser Rock, Swing, Ska, Glam, and Soca to name a few. The album is an experiment in narrative storytelling through shifting genres. “I wanted each song to come across as a chapter in a modernist novel,” Perry says of the record, “like James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,’ where the literary style/genre that each chapter is written in is radically different. So it’s a pop album, disjointed, and maybe even jarring, in style and structure, but it’s thematically coherent.”

Like their 1998 multi-platinum smash “Zoot Suit Riot: the Swingin’ hits of…,” the new album, “Skaboy JFK: the Skankin’ Hits of the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies,” will emphasize a single genre, this time the 60’s era up-tempo form of pre-reggae Jamaican soul known as ska. “Skaboy” will combine four new recordings with tracks from the group’s earlier catalogue, reflecting all the waves and varieties of ska: Traditional/Bluebeat (“2:29,” “Soul Cadillac”), Two Tone (“Hammerblow,” “Skaboy JFK”), Third Wave (“Hi and Lo,” “Sockable Face Club”). There are even funky Fishbone-esque hybrids for good measure (“Slapstick”).

With “Skaboy” the Daddies plan to reconnect with a ska audience that is largely aware of the band as merely a swing band. “We toured with many of the iconic ska bands when we were coming up,” Perry says, “like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Fishbone, Reel Big Fish, The Specials, No Doubt, and Madness, but at that time, we were really touring behind ‘Zoot Suit Riot,’ so we didn’t play a ton of ska in our sets. Now we will.”

Speaking of sets, the band plans to tour in support of both albums, with tour dates to be announced soon.

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies can be found online at: www.daddies.com or www.myspace.com/cherrypoppindaddies.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

omg I forgot about JNCOs and yeah, I def owned a couple - ;_;

With “Skaboy” the Daddies plan to reconnect with a ska audience that is largely aware of the band as merely a swing band. “We toured with many of the iconic ska bands when we were coming up,” Perry says, “like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Fishbone, Reel Big Fish, The Specials, No Doubt, and Madness, but at that time, we were really touring behind ‘Zoot Suit Riot,’ so we didn’t play a ton of ska in our sets. Now we will.”

Truly a bold statement.

I think the bolder statement was that their album is modeled after James Joyce's 'Ulysses'. You don't see a lot of Modernism in the ska world.

As for the Daddies, they were around doing their own thing for at least 8 years before they had a fluke of a hit. Of course they ran with it.

True, but they ran with it at the expense of losing their aesthetic and the entire musical/performance ideology they were founded upon. They gave into the cliches: they cut their hair, starting wearing suits, starting referring to themselves in interviews as "a swing band"...totally disregarding their history (sans the ska material). Of course, as said, you can't blame 'em...it was their big break, any one of us would have done the exact same thing if we had finally found fluke success with our own multi-genre-art-rock-band-who-develop-concept-albums-based-off-early-20th-century-literature. However, the swing revival would have had a lot more longevity if the musicians approached it in an evolutionary sense, promoting cross-genre fusions and an iconoclastic visual style, instead of just a conservative nostalgic rehash.

Not to say CPD didn't maintain artistic credibility: their follow-up album, released in 2000 at the tail end of the swing revival, was another multi-genre effort with very little swing; the lead single was even a 70s-style T. Rex-y glam rock song, produced by Tony Visconti no less. Even in the last few years, as they've been more or less relegated to playing shows at the Idaho State Fair and the Muncie Festival of Cheese, they're still doing the artsy multi-genre deal. Their last studio album didn't have ANY swing on it, nor does their ska album, obviously. Points for perseverance of vision.

Regardless of whether or not one likes CPD's music (of any genre), it's obvious the Daddies were a unique and versatile act that had heaps of (arguably pretentious) substance to match their style. The fact that they're remembered/reviled by 95% of the world as the total opposite is quite a gross injustice, in my opinion. :/

<3 Idaho State Fair

Does the short-lasting 1999 bossa nova revival count as swing? In which case, swing deserves to achieve a landslide win here. I mean, surely Lou Bega's "Mambo #5" must be one of the most annoying summer hits EVER!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

57-48. Justice would've been a tie, but this is fair.

(Ska should've "won" though)

over 100 votes!!

third-wave ska is/was dorky and embarrassing, but it produced some catchy tunes.

This could be said of second-wave/two-tone as well.

yes, i am aware that the song is anti-date rape (how very white of them, as my grandparents would say).

Is there some obvious reference I'm missing here that makes ^this not incredibly o_0

http://www.stencilpunks.org/ska_against_racism1.gif

Skacism

Ska Against Racism, Swing Against Dignity

I love how the "ska against racism" graphic looks like some racist caricature from a KKK pamphlet. I'm not saying they are racist, I doubt that, but perhaps some of the fourth generation ska (or whatever generation they are up to) sucks because they are too stupid to recognize this.

I don't think that graphic is from the current generation of ska bands, fwiw.

looks like some racist caricature from a KKK pamphlet

I found it on a site for punk rock stencils, so that's why it's very simplistic and two-toned. But I don't think that a KKK pamphlet would have a black person and a white person smiling together.

punk rock stencils

If I ever saw this spray painted on a wall, I might very literally die laughing.

If someone where I live saw this on a wall they might call the cops: "don't vote Obama, your kids will look like this!" I know they don't mean it, but, like, TRY HARDER ok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZKJwdJRbCo

4th wave ska fwiw

yes, i am aware that the song is anti-date rape (how very white of them, as my grandparents would say).

Is there some obvious reference I'm missing here that makes ^this not incredibly o_0

― sometimes I feel like throwing my glands up in the air (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, March 3, 2010 10:01 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

"how very white of you" is old-timey American slang (used by, as in my example, one's grandparents). it's basically meant to be sarcastic or as damning w/ faint praise -- as in, calling someone out when someone is patting themselves on the back for taking a "virtuous" or "heroic" stand on an issue that really isn't controversial at all in polite company. e.g., saying that you're anti-date rape (as in that sublime song) as if ANYONE is going to come out w/ a full-throated defense of date rape. i guess that the phrase COULD be interpreted as racist (though i didn't mean it as such), and it isn't that common anymore.

"as if ANYONE is going to come out w/ a full-throated defense of date rape"

Somewhere, Fred Durst is raising his hand sheepishly.

If someone where I live saw this on a wall they might call the cops: "don't vote Obama, your kids will look like this!" I know they don't mean it, but, like, TRY HARDER ok.

― Earth Dye (u s steel), Wednesday, March 3, 2010 5:26 PM (Yesterday)

uh wha?

always fun, this thread

friend was talking to me about less than jake on twitter wondering what they were doing and I said i bet they are still going those ska bands have crazy loyal audiences, but jesus christ look at this tour schedule these dudes are road warriors....cali across the whole US to europe to UK to germany with a zillion shows everywhere and barely any days off!

http://www.lessthanjake.com/shows/