Ska
The 8 Best Ska
Tracks of All Time
Jamaican musicians in 1962 taking American rhythm and blues off the radio, flipping the emphasis onto the offbeat, and adding a horn section trained in jazz. Independence music, and the first link in the chain that ends in dubstep.
- Origin
- Kingston, Jamaica, 1962
- Tempo
- 130–160 BPM
- Also known as
- bluebeat, rocksteady, jamaican ska, skank
- Tracks
- 8
- Updated
- 2026-08-30
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Number 1: The Wailers / Simmer Down
1963 · Studio One
Marley at eighteen, telling the rude boys to calm down over the Skatalites. A number one in Jamaica, and the first evidence that this group could write as well as sing.
Number 2: Don Drummond & The Skatalites / Man in the Street
1964 · Studio One
A trombone melody of extraordinary melancholy over a rhythm going the other way entirely. Drummond wrote the saddest instrumentals in a music built for celebration.
Number 3: The Skatalites / Guns of Navarone
1965 · Island
A film theme turned into a horn workout, and the record that carried ska to British dancefloors. The house band of Jamaican music at full stretch.
Number 4: Millie Small / My Boy Lollipop
1964 · Fontana
Six million copies and the first Jamaican record most of the world ever heard. Slight, joyful and historically enormous — it built the label that became Island.
Number 5: Prince Buster / Al Capone
1964 · Blue Beat
Screeching tyres, gunshots and a spoken introduction. Buster understood that a record could be a piece of theatre, which is a lesson dancehall never forgot.
Number 6: Justin Hinds & The Dominoes / Carry Go Bring Come
1964 · Treasure Isle
Three-part harmony over a Treasure Isle rhythm, warning against gossip. The most beautiful vocal record of the ska years and the one that has dated least.
Number 7: Desmond Dekker & The Aces / 007 (Shanty Town)
1967 · Beverley's
Rocksteady now — slower, heavier, the bass suddenly in charge. The exact moment the music decelerates towards reggae, captured on a hit single.
Number 8: The Ethiopians / Train to Skaville
1967 · Rio
A rhythm imitating a train, which the form had been threatening to do since 1962. The last great ska record before the tempo dropped for good.