Doe Maar is without doubt the most popular music band that Holland has ever known, a unique phenomenom which has overshadowed Dutch music for a generation and inspired all who followed. They made five albums in the late seventies and early eighties, a refreshing blend of ska, reggae and contemporary styles, resulting in a very individual and recognizable sound, and lightgreen and pink were their brand colours ever since the album Skunk, a marriage of ska and punk in name, colour and music. The band split up when they thought they couldn't improve on themselves any longer, according to one reading, or, following more popular interpretations, because the pressure imposed on them by masses of fainting schoolgirls had run way out of control.
The name of Doe Maar is not easily translated. The literal, which would be something like “Come on do it” or “Go ahead”, doesn't capture the triviality of the matter, the open end. The phrase is very common in the Dutch language, so much in fact that is has withstood the impact of a pop group naming itself after it without losing the original meaning, the positive answer to the question “shall I or...”