The Specials: The Specials : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Lots of U.K. punkers were fans of Jamaican music in the Seventies, so it made sense that reggae's faster (but previously unpopular) progenitor, ska, would eventually be combined with punk rock. More surprising was that a band would merge them as skillfully as the Specials did. Hailing from Coventry, an industrial city in England's West Midlands, this seven-piece band with multiple vocalists and songwriters spearheaded a revived interest in ska that continues to this day, largely because its debut album (released in England in late 1979 and in America in early 1980) is extraordinarily fine and fully formed. Between leader Jerry Dammers' keyboards, frontman Terry Hall's sneering vocals, the soulful singing of Neville Staples, and the braying horns of sidemen Rico Rodriguez and Dick Cuthell, the Specials embraced so much so well that their debut became an instant U.K. hit and an enduring classic worldwide.

Embodying the name of its self-created U.K. record label 2-Tone, the black-and-white band specialized in contrast, flaunting sharp vintage suits and sharper contemporary commentary, party sounds and rueful sentiments, kinetic remakes of previously obscure ska and reggae oldies (including Dandy Livingstone's "A Message to You Rudy," Prince Buster's "Too Hot" and the Maytals' "Monkey Man"), as well as songwriting that equaled or bettered its inspirations. Produced with straightforward intensity by Elvis Costello, The Specials' fourteen tracks veered between racism ("Doesn't Make It Alright"), urban anxiety ("Concrete Jungle"), babies making babies (the BBC-banned but chart-topping "Too Much Too Young"), trendies ("Nite Klub"), free will ("It's Up to You") and more. Although Hall, Staples and guitarist-singer Lynval Golding would soon split to form Fun Boy Three and the others would regroup as the Special A.K.A., this early achievement remains one of New Wave's greatest and most diverse debuts.