→ 22 answers so far ↓

• 1 jason // Dec 15, 2009 at 2:53 pm

  it’s hard to say when the 4th wave will happen. someone has to make a big splash before the wave can hit us again and i don’t see much interest in ska right now. i think we’re at least a few years away. same goes for rockabilly.

  current votes: 0 vote if this makes you say “unnggghhhh!”

• 2 phil // Dec 15, 2009 at 3:46 pm

  I think trends don’t come in big waves anymore cause everything is so diffused so it may not happen at all. I’m not sure what trends in popular music, in terms of the way it sounds, we can find at all in the past 10 years.

  current votes: 0 vote if this makes you say “black word!”

• 3 jon // Dec 15, 2009 at 3:55 pm

  Will 4th wave use Auto Tune?

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• 4 phil // Dec 15, 2009 at 4:03 pm

  I figure it will be like this http://www.box.net/shared/static/rdhp1noil7.mp3
  (from diamonds in the dust)

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• 5 eddie k // Dec 15, 2009 at 4:52 pm

  It wont come back until it goes away. *points at Less Than Jake and Reel Big Fish*

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• 6 jake // Dec 15, 2009 at 5:00 pm

  @eddie k: Madness– a Second Wave band– never really went away but that didn’t stop the Third Wave from happening.

  @phil: I think there have been definite trends in music. What about mainstream pop-punk, nu-metal, rap-rock and the like? What about auto-tune?

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• 7 jason // Dec 15, 2009 at 7:57 pm

  Nothing ever really goes away, it just returns to its natural place among the hearts of listeners. I don’t think ska can come back in the u.s. until young people forget how bad less than jake and reel big fish are and start remembering how amazing desmond dekker, delroy wilson and derrick morgan are. and those are only the names that start with D! ska is the best!

  current votes: 0 vote if this makes you say “real talk”

• 8 phil // Dec 15, 2009 at 9:03 pm

  People have short memories, but I bet the week after a ska single comes on the radio there will that same week be a “ghost pop” song, a sexy robot ballad, a country song by two identical twins, and an Akon song where he sings underwater so there won’t even be time for a trend to take hold. I think rather than waves at the ocean way to see it is choppy water in a wading pool.

  Does that sound like crazy talk to you or do I make sense?

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• 9 dav // Dec 15, 2009 at 9:47 pm

  Woah phil, i think i may have to read that again in the morning when I have had coffee instead of beer.

  @jason, i just recently had a bud ask me about the song that goes “whoaaaaaa whoaaaa the ‘hillllllss are alive’” by desmond dekker. The hills are alive! and maybe also “the israelites.” amazing.

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• 10 sarah // Dec 16, 2009 at 10:12 am

  This question is getting me very excited. “The Israelites” is the jam. I would love to see Less than Jake wiped off the face of this planet, but I have zero faith in the ability of the youth of today to do so. Unless some tween is pole dancing on an awards show or a mediocre rapper’s voice is perverted by auto-tune, they aren’t going to listen to it. This makes my heart weep. Also, I worked with the bassist from Slow Gherkin for quite some time and he was a pretty rad dude. I am absolutely going to listen to ska all day.

  current votes: 0 vote if this makes you say “kudos”

• 11 jake // Dec 16, 2009 at 11:35 am

  It’s not like ska was ever an overwhelming pop phenomenon– at least in the U.S.– so framing the discussion around what’s on MTV or the radio doesn’t seem like the right way to look at it. It’s always been mostly a subculture thing, with one or two mainstream-breakthrough groups or songs. @phil, is there no room for this kind of subcultural phenomenon any more?

  current votes: 0 vote if this makes you say “black word!”

• 12 phil // Dec 16, 2009 at 11:58 am

  I think things don’t percolate slowly in obscurity for a few years, then come to a boil under the heat of the mainstream. It happens much faster now.

  I think our cultural attention span is so short and so scattered that a ska revival might consist of one single that gets radio play (and since I only listen to urban radio format, I won’t even know about it unless Akon is involved.)

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• 13 NateG // Dec 16, 2009 at 12:53 pm

  I hope it never comes! i’ve never been a fan of ska.

  I absolutely hate less than jake. I saw them open for bad religion somewhere on the order of 8 years ago and they were terrible. They were lame.

  They also kept shining this spotlight on me and 10 of my friends cuz we weren’t interested in dancing. About the second or third time the lead singer of less than jake paused the set to try and intimidate us into dancing with this spotlight, me and all of my friends simultaneously flipped off the band. The audience cheered us and less than jake played the rest of their crappy paper streamer infused set without stoping to talk to anybody.

  This show would have been impossibly awesome had they not been on the bill. Bands playing were hot water music, Less than jake, then bad religion… Less than jake was such a bummer after watching HWM.

  current votes: 0 vote if this makes you say “unnggghhhh!”

• 14 Tiffany! // Dec 17, 2009 at 9:33 am

  @Jake- “overwhelming pop phenomena..” : What about when No Doubt went from Beacon Street to whatever the heck they did to get famous?

  also at Jake: very good call on Madness.

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• 15 jake // Dec 17, 2009 at 10:16 am

  @Tiffany!: Yeah, but the more mainstream No Doubt got, the less ska they got (and I could be wrong, but I think they were never 100% ska to begin with). Also, No Doubt was one of very few ska-ish bands to hit the mainstream, the other bands on that list being mostly one-hit wonders (as far as the mainstream was concerned).

  My point is that whether or not ska attained widespread appeal (such as the kind that would get it played a lot on the radio) has never been one of the criteria for identifying a Wave.

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• 16 jason // Dec 17, 2009 at 2:02 pm

  a wave is just a peak of interest relative to what was happening before and what happens after. for a wave to happen their has to be either a breakout band or a number of really good bands to generate that peak of interest, otherwise it’s just high tide.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr4XeunDmN8

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• 17 jake // Dec 17, 2009 at 2:09 pm

  So here’s a question: If you erase No Doubt from history, does the Third Wave still exist?

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• 18 phil // Dec 17, 2009 at 2:15 pm

  @Jake Yes. I think that the 3rd wave act that really set the tone was Operation Ivy. No Doubt had the pump primed for them in a lot of ways and their timing was very fortunate. They were like the crest of the wave.

  @Jason, speaking of tides:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rwSPmT3ujU

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• 19 jason // Dec 17, 2009 at 2:53 pm

  that’s a tough question, but i think it does. i think if you take away no doubt’s influence on other bands and the record buying public, the wave would have been a much smaller commercially but it still would have existed.

  phil and i were talking about this the other day, becasue all i talk about is ska and he reminded me that operation ivy was the big splash that got the 3rd wave going in the first place. without op ivy who knows. as far as i know they invented the whole ska-punk thing and that is really what the 3rd wave was all about. maybe the bosstones preceded them, i don’t know but op ivy, in my opinion, was the best.

  i think it’s the influence that makes the wave and the commercial success maybe follows.

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• 20 tarbot // Dec 17, 2009 at 3:01 pm

  i have nothing to add to this discussion except to say that i agree with all of phil’s posts.

  current votes: 0 vote if this makes you say “I agree”

• 21 phil // Dec 17, 2009 at 3:12 pm

  Real talk, tarbot. Jason I forgot about Bosstones who have all the trappings of the 3rd wave (American, obviously inspired by English 2nd wave, wear bright colors) but were so far ahead of my timetable that they ruin it so I have to pretend they don’t exist which isn’t that hard since I’m not a big fan to begin with.

  current votes: 0 vote if this makes you say “unnggghhhh!”

• 22 DirtyDanSin // Dec 17, 2009 at 4:49 pm

  Hate, hate, hate The Bosstones. When they played the club at which I worked, Dickey threw a heavy mic stand on our brand new front-of-house board. He was fully aware it was new…and even if it wasn’t…it’s the GD FOH!

  There was nearly a brawl that night between staff and these knuckleheads. We settled for monkeying with the van

  Early they may have been, but I consider them dumb-butt wave. Fishbone were before these a-holes. Home team wins.

  current votes: 0 vote if this makes you say “[applause]“

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