The English Beat Crowdfunding First New Album In 32 Years

The English Beat

The English Beat Crowdfunding First New Album In 32 Years

The English Beat

I Just Can’t Stop It, the 1980 debut from the English Beat, rivals the Specials’ self-titled debut as the greatest full-length to come out of the British 2-Tone ska revival. After that album, the English Beat (or, if you’re outside the U.S., just the Beat) released two more albums before breaking up in 1983, as co-frontmen Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger went on to form the pretty-good new wave band General Public. For the past few years, Wakeling, now based in America, has been touring with a version of the English Beat that doesn’t include any other original members. And now, as Slicing Up Eyeballs reports, he’s turned to PledgeMusic to raise money to record the first new English Beat album since 1982’s Special Beat Service. As I write this, he’s 38% of his way to the goal, with 49 days left in the campaign, and he’s promised to donate 10% of whatever he makes over the fundraising goal to Doctors Without Borders. At the Pledgemusic campaign’s page, you can hear a demo of a new song called “You Really Ought To Know,” which sounds better than an only-one-original-member reunion thing should sound.

more from News