Fashioned in 1977, Coventry two-tone and ska revivalists The Specials are one of the vital necessary and revolutionary bands within the historical past of popular culture. The brainchild of lead songwriter and keyboardist Jerry Dammers, the band have been a potent mixture of younger, indignant British punks and Jamaican rocksteady followers introduced up in a sound system tradition. The collision of the 2 beliefs created a brand-new model of ska, nonetheless as euphoric and danceable because it ever was, however shot via with the burning anger and frustration of the youth of Thatcherite Britain. The Specials represented what Britain could possibly be: multicultural, respectful, clever and socially aware. As a collective they made a few of the best music this nation has ever produced and, with the unhappy passing of frontman Terry Corridor on the age of 63 contemporary in our minds, now looks like the proper time to rejoice the band with their 10 most important songs.
A Message To You Rudy (The Specials, 1979)
The band’s second single, recorded with the assistance of legendary Jamaican ska musicians Rico Rodriguez and Dick Cuthell on trombone and trumpet respectively, The Specials’ cowl of Dany Richardson’s 1967 music is a vital second in giving British two-tone some a lot wanted credibility. A devoted remodeling of the unique, it stored the easy cool of the rocksteady model, however added that little little bit of gritty, British punk rock harshness to the sound. As such, a complete motion was born.
Nite Klub (The Specials, 1979)
A woozy, lackadaisical brass opening provides technique to a skanking, full-throttle banger, with one of many best dub bass breakdowns you’ll ever hear smack bang within the center. Nite Klub is a completely enormous tune, but it surely’s Terry Corridor’s sneering, scattershot supply of lyrics detailing the apathy and pointlessness of spending his time “in a spot like this” the place “the beer style similar to piss” that’s the stand-out aspect right here. The music manages to be joyously enjoyable, whereas scathing in its take down of Britain’s ingesting, preventing and fucking tradition.
Little Bitch (The Specials, 1979)
Jerry Dammers at his meanest, Little Bitch is a very harsh music, detailing Dammers’ emotions on the, ahem,”bitch” that the music is geared toward. We’re not going to get into the lyrics right here, as a result of that could be a scorching potato, but it surely’s clear that he’s not completely satisfied, and this can be a hell of a diss observe. Musically, although, it’s actually arduous to argue that Little Bitch isn’t nice: a warp-speed, careering, punk rock rager, it confirmed a uncommon glimpse of The Specials at their very, very angriest.
Too A lot Too Younger (reside model) (A.Okay.A. Stay, 1980)
The unique model of the music that appeared on the band’s self-titled debut is superb certainly – a skanking, slowed-down lament geared toward not losing your youth. Lyrically it’s one other fairly brutal assault (describing somebody’s “cute” child as “Simply one other burden on the welfare state” is savage), but it surely nonetheless retains its coronary heart in the proper place. Nonetheless, the music actually took on a lifetime of its personal when it was launched in a double, perhaps even triple-time, fast model on a stopgap EP in 1980. It gave the band their first ever primary single, and this model stays one in every of their most immediately recognisable tracks.
Get pleasure from Your self (It is Later Than You Suppose) (Extra Specials, 1980)
The Specials’ second album noticed band chief Dammers make a concerted effort to push his colleagues in quite a lot of musical instructions, the frustration from different members at his love for organ muzak ultimately resulting in Terry Corridor and fellow vocalists Lynval Golding and Horace Panter leaving to type Enjoyable Boy Three and ending the traditional line-up of the band eternally. Nonetheless, the file opened with an effervescent cowl of Carl Sigman and Herb Magidsen’s 1949 tune. It’s basically a ska remodeling of the music, however there are greater than sufficient hints that that is going to be a fuller, broader and weirder model of what we’ve heard from the band earlier than. It doesn’t all repay on Extra Specials as an entire, however this can be a wonderful opening to the album that turned a traditional in its personal proper.
Do Nothing (Extra Specials, 1980)
One other of the straighter dancehall tracks from Extra Specials, the second single from the file was launched as a double A-side with a superb cowl of Bob Dylan’s Maggie’s Farm (referencing then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher). Do Nothing is a splendidly catchy, two-stepping, summery piece of music, but it surely additionally hides some biting lyrics laced with the frustration of a seemingly by no means altering society. Right here The Specials as soon as once more show they’re masters at sweetening the bitterest of capsules.
Ghost City (Ghost City EP, 1981)
Fairly merely put, Ghost City is among the most necessary, outstanding and poignant singles ever launched by a band from the UK. With police clashing with black communities throughout the UK and riots going down in Brixton within the aftermath of the notorious New Cross Home Hearth in London in early 1981, the UK was in chaos and disarray. The week after the riots, Ghost City, The Specials’ ode to societal decay, interior metropolis violence and mass unemployment, hit to the highest of the UK charts. It’s arduous to consider a single different music in UK chart historical past that has summed up the temper of a nation so crushingly succinctly. Ghost City stays a landmark second for artwork as a mirrored image of the world round it, and is among the best moments in pop historical past. That six minutes alone is an unimaginable legacy for the band.
Nelson Mandela (1984)
Divisive a music it might be, its pop sheen, brash parping and simplistic message a world away from the gritty, gray, kitchen sink realism of The Specials at their greatest. Plus, in fact, the dearth of Corridor, Panter and Golding implies that some will likely be fast to dismiss this explicit iteration of the band (it was launched underneath their The Particular A.Okay.A.). However, to Dammer’s credit score, it’s a hell of an ear-worm, and it introduced Mandela to the eye of the file shopping for public lengthy earlier than anybody else. It additionally ushered in an period of landmark charity and protest songs turning into the norm, getting in a full 9 months earlier than Band Assist kicked the charity rock music doorways in.
B.L.M
One other very good observe from Encore, this time with a cool wah-wah guitar and a implausible strolling bass line. But it surely’s the lyrics from Lynval Golding, who particulars his total life as a black man born in Jamaica, who joined his father within the UK within the Sixties earlier than shifting to America within the 90s, and the racist attitudes he has skilled all through that point, that star right here. Golding’s story put to music is pure poetry, and the refrain hook of “I’m not right here to show you, I’m not right here to evangelise to you, I simply need to attain out to you” is brilliantly catchy, superbly heartfelt and exceptionally shifting. A beautiful piece of musical storytelling.
10 Commandments (Encore, 2019)
2019’s emotional comeback album was each a business and significant smash, giving the band the primary primary album of their profession and being simply as danceable and furiously political as ever. One of the crucial inspirational tracks is the band’s collaboration with Saffiyah Khan, the younger girl who was photographed calmly taking the ire of an EDL bigot screaming in her face in an iconic picture that may turn into an inspiring act of defiance. Her spoken phrase takedown of racism, poisonous masculinity and Britain’s grubbiest and most revolting attitudes alongside a gradual, skipping dub musical backdrop is superb, and confirmed that The Specials have been as very important a voice right this moment as they have been 40 years prior.
