Mon Cherie Skamour

To most, the essence of "ska music" is energy: an upbeat, catchy rhythm, that provides the infective inspiration to dance. If the style of music has one fault, it is that it can be easily taken over by its energy, focusing on bouncing rhythms at the expense of meaning and lyrical expression. Easy listening ska therefore seems a contradiction in terms, sapping the music of its most important quality, its energy. However, this contradiction could provide an opportunity to challenge the accepted form of ska music, injecting it with a new meaning and lyrical relevancy.

Floyd Lloyd, a Jamaican singer working with several different bands, has tried to create just that: ska for the subdued. This is an interesting proposition, but one which, unfortunately, requires more talent to be implemented successfully than the singer/writer is able to demonstrate. His new CD, Tear It Up: The Ska Album, consists of a collection of tunes that, for the most part, try to be to ska what soft rock is to rock and roll. But while the album offers a few songs with fair instrumentals, the CD does not succeed, lapsing into tedious and uninteresting music backing repetitive and superficial lyrics.

Only two of the songs on the album, "Big City" and "Tear it Up," come close to expressing the energy characteristic of ska. Though somewhat subdued by comparison to the work of other bands, the tunes have, at least, enough of a bouncy quality to make them passably diverting in spite of their incredibly repetitive lyrics. Take these two songs, reduce their lengths by a third, add some meaningful lyrics, and "Big City" and "Tear it Up" will be lively enough to be worth listening to. But then, the songs will also be closer to the mainstream of ska than the rest of the album.

But though "Big City" and "Tear it Up" approach pass ability, it would be inaccurate to say that Floyd Lloyd's strength lies in "traditional" ska. The album's two other attempts at this more lively variety of music, "Ska Party" and "Mr. Yo Yo," are incredibly tired, depressingly sucking the bounce out of a bouncy kind of song. The music drags and the lyrics are unimpressive. "Ska Party," for example, uses such convincing arguments as "You're on the guest list;/ You won't have to pay," to persuade listeners to "come to the party tonight." Very uninspiring.

The CD's few high points occur in some of the instrumentals. "Jesse Jackson" features an interesting and somewhat exotic melody for the baritone saxophone. While the song is repetitive and the lyrics extraneous, this saxophone theme is somewhat expressive and thus worth hearing.

But it would also be inaccurate to call Floyd Lloyd's strength instrumentals. The album's three entirely instrumental tracks, all recorded with the group the Potato 5, are not successful. Instead of featuring interesting instrumental solos or themes, these songs provide a sort of base rhythm. Reminiscent of songs that carry the melody in the vocal with the vocal part suddenly removed, the musical themes demonstrated here could serve as the foundation for more complex and complete pieces, but as they are, the songs are tedious.

The best example of what seems to be the goal of the majority of the songs on Tear it Up is "Sweet Lady." This song succeeds in providing a pleasant "soft" ska feel. The ska rhythms are present but the song is very reminiscent of soft rock. In addition, the song features a pretty saxophone solo, making "Sweet Lady" the most promising of the songs on the album.

The song, "Same Way," on the other hand, has slightly promising lyrics. The words fit with the style of the music, focusing on overcoming difficulties, saying "Get up the same way you went down./ You gotta turn that frown upside down." While the words are still repetitive and riddled with cliche, they move beyond the two-sentence-repeated comments of the other songs on the album to a more developed line of thought. And while the lyrics still repeat and the song still sounds tired, the singer's tone of voice works well with both the musical style and the lyrical content of the song.

The remainder of the songs on the album, however, are unmemorable attempts to use this soft style of ska. Featuring tedious and uninteresting music as well as unexciting lyrics, the songs are all boring enough to be difficult to listen to.

On the whole, the music of Tear I Up: The Ska Album features the beat characteristic of ska, but the majority of the songs lack the energy usually present in this style of music without compensating for that lack of energy with interesting instrumental themes. And none of the songs are redeemed by meaningful lyrics. Most simply make one statement and then repeat it, and those that elaborate do so in a superficial manner. Floyd Lloyd succeeds in offering a vision of soft ska, but he does not succeed in actualizing that vision. What is left is a CD that is mediocre at best--sapping the music of its energy and leaving nothing substantial in its place.