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The Specials : Gangsters

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On May 29, 1979 BBC Radio 1 broadcast The Specials performing four songs on John Peel's radio show, "Too Much Too Young",  "Concrete Jungle", a cover of the Toot and the Maytals "Monkey Man" and the debut single "Gangsters" of which their label printed up just 5,000 copies.  Originally known as the Coventry Automatics, the Specials were a ska outfit whose "Gangsters" ignited a  2 Tone explosion, providing a launching pad for bands including Madness, Selecter, The Beat and Bodysnatchers. 

Peel was a huge fan of "Gangsters", saying in 1980:

That was The Specials 'Gangsters'. The record of it - one of those records that really changes your life, I mean it actually does, rather like I suppose The Damned's first single, where you wake up the next day and nothing's ever really quite the same again.

A full release of the single came in the summer and "Gangsters" rose to U.K.#6. Both NME and Sounds selected "Gangsters" as the #2 best song of the year, behind The Jam's "Eton Rifles". The song reworks Prince Buster's "Al Capone" , even sampling the car skid from the 1964 ska classic. It's about a tour in France where The Specials were held responsible for damage in a hotel that another English band caused. The hotel manager even took one of their guitars as a deposit. The Specials had to pay the damage, and the situation escalated when the French police came around.