Rock Steady (All Saints song)
"Rock Steady" is a song performed by British-Canadian recording girl group All Saints from their third studio album, Studio 1. It was co-written by group member Shaznay Lewis in collaboration with the track's producer Greg Kurstin. The song was released by Parlophone Records on 6 November 2006 on CD, digital, maxi-single and 12" vinyl format. "Rock Steady" was the last official single to be released by the group. All Saints collaborated with Kurstin on a number of songs; six were chosen for the album. "Rock Steady" was released as the first single from it. The song contains prominent 2 Tone, dance-pop, reggae fusion, rocksteady and ska musical characteristics. It is lyrically influenced by feelings of feminism and confidence in reference to the personalities of the group members themselves.
"Rock Steady" received mainly positive reviews from contemporary music critics. On 11 November 2006, the single debuted at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart before reaching a peak of number three the following week. It became All Saints' ninth consecutive top ten hit in the United Kingdom. The single also garnered chart success internationally; peaking within the top ten in the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary and Spain, and the top forty in several other countries.
Rocksteady
Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was performed by Jamaican vocal harmony groups such as The Gaylads, The Maytals, The Heptones and The Paragons. The term rocksteady comes from a dance style that was mentioned in the Alton Ellis song "Rock Steady". Dances performed to rocksteady were less energetic than the earlier ska dances. The first international rocksteady hit was "Hold Me Tight" (1968) by the American soul singer Johnny Nash; it reached number one in Canada.
Characteristics
Rocksteady uses some of the musical elements of rhythm and blues (R&B), jazz, ska, African and Latin American drumming, and other genres. One of the most easily recognizable elements, as in ska, are offbeat rhythms; staccato chords played by a guitar and piano on the offbeats of the measure. This offbeat can be counted so that it falls between each count as an "and". Example: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. The perceived tempo became slower with the development of rocksteady than it had been in ska and this led to a number of changes in the music. The guitar and piano players began to experiment with occasional accents around the basic offbeat pattern. This can be heard throughout Jamaican recordings in subsequent years.
Rocksteady (disambiguation)
Rocksteady is a musical genre, a predecessor of reggae, that was most popular in Jamaica in the 1960s.
Rocksteady or Rock Steady may also refer to:
Music
Albums
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Other uses
Rock Steady (The Whispers song)
"Rock Steady" is a single released by American R&B group The Whispers, from their eighteenth studio album, Just Gets Better with Time (1987).
It was released on June 13, 1987 and was their highest charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number seven in late-August, and was their second and final number one on the Hot Black Singles Chart. It was produced by the production duo Antonio "L.A." Reid & Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds. The instrumental from this song was used on Kylie Minogue's song "Look My Way" from her 1988 debut album Kylie. The drum beat also appeared at the beginning of the third remix of Was (Not Was)' song, "Out Come the Freaks," which appeared on their 1987/88 album, What Up, Dog?.
Charts
See also
References
