ALBUM BY ALBUM

ONE OF BRITISH POP’S FINEST, TERRY HALL HELPED PIONEER A WHOLE NEW MOVEMENT WITH THE SPECIALS BEFORE UTILISING HIS FAMOUSLY DEADPAN TALENTS IN NUMEROUS EQUALLY INTRIGUING BANDS, SIDE PROJECTS, SUPERGROUPS AND SOLO RELEASES

JON O’BRIEN

Formerly known as The Coventry Automatics, The Specials turned their West Midlands hometown into an unlikely cultural hub towards the end of the 70s, infusing the music of Jamaica with a distinctly British punk spirit to pioneer the sound that became known as 2 Tone.

Featuring the guitarists Lynval Golding and Roddy ‘Radiation’ Byers, bass player Horace Panter and, eventually, drummer John Bradbury, as well as roadie-turned-singer Neville Staple and poker-faced vocalist Terry Hall, the band had been formed by chief songwriter Jerry Dammers with the intention of putting Coventry on the map. And after being discovered by Joe Strummer, leading to a support slot on The Clash’s Out On Parole Tour, the seven-piece soon achieved their goal.

Of course, The Specials didn’t always paint the city in the most flattering light, the majority of their original material reflecting on the hardships of suburban life during the early years of Thatcherite Britain.

Concrete Jungle was written by Byers about being chased by the National Front, while It’s Up To You and Doesn’t Make It Alright both further tackle the band’s experiences of racism head on.

And Too Much Too Young, a live recording of which would later give the band a controversial No.1, is a kitchen sink vignette in which the band show their blatant disdain towards an adolescent mother.

THE SPECIALS TURNED THEIR HOMETOWN INTO AN UNLIKELY CULTURAL HUB TOWARDS THE END OF THE 70S

Although The Specials were admirably keen to call out society’s prejudices, this rhetoric could sometimes tip over into sexism. Amid the chatter and chinking glasses of Nite Klub, Hall declares “All the girls are slags,” for example.

And Little Bitch is downright nasty, berating a young girl for her appearance, bed-wetting tendencies and suicidal cries for attention. It’s little wonder the group soon dropped the track from their set.

While not all of the band’s lyrical themes have aged particularly well, a telling sign of their late teenage years, the music still remains positively thrilling. The Specials were particularly skilful in adapting ska classics for the New Wave crowd, with Stupid Marriage downgrading the murder charges of Prince Buster’s Judge Dread to vengeful vandalism (with a little help from Chrissie Hynde to boot) and Do The Dog turning Rufus Thomas’ original into a commentary on the rising levels of subcultural violence.

Elvis Costello, meanwhile, was the perfect choice of producer, his unfussy approach brilliantly recapturing the raw energy of the band’s live shows. As opening mission statements go, this was pretty special.

As its title suggested, The Specials’ second LP initially appeared to be more of the same. Side One was bookended by repurposed covers, with music hall standard Enjoy Yourself turned into a pogo-inducing ska anthem about the increasing likelihood of nuclear attacks and the kitsch Northern Soul of Sock It To ’Em J.B. updating the James Bond references of Rex Garvin’s original.

The gloominess of life under a Tory government was still the default theme. Hall’s first writing credit Man At C&A ramped up the Cold War paranoia further. Hey, Little Rich Girl charted the fortunes of a young woman whose big city dreams are exploited by the porn industry. And in case you still hadn’t twigged that the Coventry outfit weren’t the picture of contentment, Pearl’s Cafe, a collaboration with future The Special AKA member Rhoda Dakar – explicitly declared “It’s all a load of bollocks.”

However, with Dammers itching to broaden the group’s horizons – “I didn’t want us to end up like Bad Manners,” he told Uncut – Side Two knocked everyone, including his own bandmates, for six. Inspired by the hotel lobby music that became an inadvertent soundtrack of their previous tour, Dammers pursued an intriguing melting pot of easy listening styles worlds apart from the 2 Tone that had gone before.