What is Beat? by The English Beat. This is a greatest hits collection from a great ska band from the early 1980s. In post-punk, not quite new wave England there was a movement to escape the crude racism of traditional English society. This band is a tribute to that dance hall movement. A very slick, happy sound is demonstrated, with dance tunes and appeals to racial, gender, and working class unity—a rejection of the sort of identity politics that divides the left and an embrace of a politics in which identity is simply lived and enjoyed. “Save it For Later” is one of my favorites on this album, and “Too Nice to Talk To.” This band extends a tradition in pop songs about masturbation in the song “Hit It.”