Ska sucks. Or does it?

Experts cannot seem to agree on ska, which is arguably either the best or worst form of music ever created. However, there are some things that should be said in its defense, before it’s dismissed by every college student.

Ska supposedly started sometime during the 1950’s in Jamaica. This is hard to prove, but since nobody seems to care enough today to research the beginnings of it, it has become generally accepted.

Ska, like depression, comes in waves. The first and second waves are made up of bands that most people have either never heard of, or never will be able to listen to. Trust me, it is hard to find first-wave ska recordings in the Midwest. However, anybody can go to the store and buy music from the Specials, which should be an essential to most carbon-based life forms with ears.

However, the third wave has taken us here, to a day where ska is neglected like “3:10 to Yuma” was at the Oscars. Of course, the mid-90’s was huge for ska, with bands like Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake actually being played on mainstream radio. This caught fire, brought to us obnoxious bands (No Doubt and Sublime) and then faded away.

Ignore this phase of ska for the most part. There are a few albums released by ska bands in the ‘90s that were not a part of the ska explosion but are actually quality albums. Slapstick’s self-titled album is a punk/ska masterpiece, and the Blue Meanies’ “Full Throttle” is an album that can be listened to at almost any time.

However, ska today is not dead. Ska is the new punk. Bands like Big D and the Kids Table, Bomb the Music Industry!, Streetlight Manifesto and Common Rider all embrace a punk mind-set yet play with horns.

Patrick Kelly of Kickstand Productions disagrees with everything I’ve just written.

“Ska music is the worst style of music out there,” he said.

However, I would be willing to bet that there are at least a few people on this campus who like ska, and since some of them work here at the Northern Star, our tracks of the day for this entire week are ska-themed.

In short, whether you like ska or not, the Flavor section has gone checkerboard until Thursday.