The Specials release the Song of the Year

The Specials : Ghost Town

In June of 1981 The Specials released the Ghost Town EP. The title track would spend three weeks at #1 in the UK and would top the critics end of year polls at the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker. The Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics poll listed Ghost Town as the best EP of the year as well. 

The song was inspired by a UK tour The Specials did to promote their second album.

In 2002 Dammers told The Guardian, "You travelled from town to town and what was happening was terrible. In Liverpool, all the shops were shuttered up, everything was closing down ... We could actually see it by touring around. You could see that frustration and anger in the audience. In Glasgow, there were these little old ladies on the streets selling all their household goods, their cups and saucers. It was unbelievable. It was clear that something was very, very wrong."

The song is also a reflection on the band, which had been written off by critics and would soon break up. There's surely enough misery here for everyone.

The Kinks : Better Things

If you're looking to the Kinks to get cheered up, you're out of luck. Despite the title, the UK#46/US#90 "Better Things" is a a breakup song Ray Davies wrote about his failing marriage. This Give The People What They Want track was covered by Pearl Jam and Dar Williams.

 

Future Yo La Tengo/ present day rock critic Ira Kaplan named "Better Things" one of his fave songs of the year.

IRA KAPLAN (alphabetical): 

 Cramps: "Goo Goo Muck"/"She Said" (I.R.S.); 

 Cyclones: "You're So Cool"/"RSVP" (Little Ricky); 

 Fleetwood Mac: "Farmer's Daughter" (Warner Bros.); 

 Funky Four Plus One: "That's the Joint" (Sugarhill); 

 Vic Godard and Subway Sect: "Stop That Girl" (Oddball import); 

 Grace Jones: "Pull Up to the Bumper" (Island); 

 Kinks: "Better Things" (Arista); 

 R.E.M.: "Radio Free Europe"/"Sitting Still" (Hib-Tone); 

 Skeletons: "Trans Am"/"Tell Her I'm Gone" (Borrowed); 

 Voggue: "Dance the Night Away" (Atlantic).

The Freshies: I Can't Get Bouncing Babies By The Teardrop Explodes

Chris Sievey returns with another long-titled single that sounds like something the girl on the Manchester Virgin Megastore check-out desk might tell a customer. 

Ben Watt : Can't

Finally future Everything But The Girl Ben Watt releases his first single on Cherry Red Records. It's called, in keeping with this post's theme, "Can't". The song and the two B sides are produced by Kevin Coyne.

Dance Craze celebrates the 2 Tone scene on film

The Specials : Nite Klub

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On February 15, 1981 Dance Craze, a documentary about the British ska scene, made its premiere in London. The film was directed by American Joe Massot, who also made Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same. The hope was that Dance Craze would do for ska what The Harder They Come did for reggae, but critics were disappointed that the film was just a series of clips of bands performing their songs. 

Dance Craze wouldn't play to American audience until the Spring of 1982, where it appeared in art theaters and then vanished almost without a trace. Never released on DVD or to streaming services, Dance Craze reveals the incredible energy the 2 Tone bands brought to the stage. If you had to see it to believe it, this remains one of the few ways to see it. 

At some point in my collegiate career I managed to get a copy of the soundtrack album, a terrific primer to the 2 Tone scene. The soundtrack peaked in the Top 10 of the UK charts in 1981 and at 145 on the American charts the following year. More importantly, it influenced the next wave of ska artists, including Fishbone.

The performances in order:

"Nite Klub" – The Specials 

"The Prince" – Madness 

"Ne-Ne-Na-Na-Na-Na-Nu-Nu" – Bad Manners 

"007 (Shanty Town)" – The Bodysnatchers 

"Three Minute Hero" – The Selecter 

"Ranking Full Stop" – The Beat 

"Big Shot" – The Beat 

"Concrete Jungle" – The Specials 

"Swan Lake" – Madness 

"Razor Blade Alley" – Madness 

"Missing Words" – The Selecter 

"Let's Do the Rock Steady" – The Bodysnatchers 

"Lip Up Fatty" – Bad Manners 

"Madness" – Madness 

"Too Much Too Young" – The Specials 

"On My Radio" – The Selecter 

"Easy Life" – The Bodysnatchers 

"Rough Rider" – The Beat 

"Man at C&A" – The Specials 

"Inner London Violence" – Bad Manners 

"Night Boat to Cairo" – Madness 

"Twist and Crawl" – The Beat 

"Wooly Bully" – Bad Manners 

"Too Much Pressure" – The Selecter

 "Mirror in the Bathroom" – The Beat 

"One Step Beyond" – Madness 

"Nite Klub" – The Specials

 

The Specials Do Nothing and still hit The UK Top 10

The Specials : Do Nothing 

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In early December of 1980 The Specials released a remixed version of the More Specials track "Do Nothing" ( with "The Ice Rink String Sounds") b/w a calypso-styled cover of Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm". The latter may be unlistenable, but that didn't matter. It became the band's sixth straight Top 10 hit, peaking at UK#4.

 

Why More Specials sounds nothing like The Specials

The Specials : Stereotype

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"It's time for 2-Tone bands to begin getting experimental. Some of the home-grown ska has started to become a cliche. We've got to start all over again."

-Jerry Dammers

On October 4, 1980 The Specials released the UK#5 More Specials, one of the most surprising albums of the year because the band had expanded its sound to include lounge music, easy listening and film scores. If you're put off by the new direction, you can blame it on the elevator music the band heard on their American tour, Said Dammers :

"On that tour in America, I was listening to music in the hotel bars and elevators. Vibraphone music in elevators. Obviously this was classed as rubbish. I don't know if it was my state of mind, because I was so zonked, but it struck me as a really weird, psychedelic music, which is now called lounge or exotica. It's been rehabilitated, but at the time, to say you actually liked that music was mad. It completely freaked out some of the band."

It also freaked out the fans. Guitarist Roddy Byers said the Specials "went from With the Beatles to Sgt. Pepper's without doing Rubber Soul."

   While side one features some reggae and ska, side two is where things get strange, especially on "International Jet Set" which tells the nightmarish tale of a hellish plane journey over elevator music:

Spread the disease, from the south China sea/ To the beach hotel Malibu /Phone my girlfriend to ask her "How's her weekend?" /I say "Hi, Terry here", and she says "Terry who, the hell are you?"

Befuddled critics decided Dammers must have known what he was doing. NME critics ranked the album #32 for the year and future critics would say here is where you'll find the origins of trip-hop.

From Smash Hits:

1980's Best Self Isolation Songs

The Police : Don't Stand So Close To Me

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In 1980 quite a few rock bands recorded songs about the threat of nuclear warfare. I've already covered that. 40 years later, we now live in a new age that will define this generation. To lower the infection rate of the Covid-19 virus, we must put up barriers between the infected and would-be patients. Here are some songs to help us keep this in mind.

1. The Police : Don't Stand So Close To Me

Inspirational Lyric:

He starts to shake he starts to cough
Just like the old man in
That famous book by Nabakov
Don't stand so close to me

2. Joy Division : Isolation

Inspirational Lyric:

In fear every day, every evening

... Isolation, isolation, isolation.

3. English Beat: Mirror in the Bathroom

Inspirational Lyric:

Mirror in the bathroom 

Please talk free 

The door is locked 

Just you and me

4. Generation X : Dancing With Myself

Inspirational lyric:

So let's sink another drink
Cause it'll give me time to think
If I had the chance I'd ask the world to dance
And I'll be dancin' with myself

5. 10cc : I Hate To Eat Alone

Inspirational lyric:

'N' frozen dinners don't do much for me
When you've got T.V. on the table
'N' T.V. on T.V.
All you do is chew your fingers
Down to the bone
I hate to eat alone

6. The B-52's: Private Idaho

Inspirational lyric:

You're living in your own Private Idaho 

Living in your own Private Idaho 

Underground like a wild potato 

Don't go on the patio

7. Bruce Springsteen : You Can Look But You Better Not Touch

Inspirational lyric:

You can look but you better not touch boy
Mess around and you'll end up in dutch boy
You can look but you better not, no you better not, no you better not touch

8. Utopia : Alone

Inspirational lyric:

Alone, alone
Nobody knows how lonely it can be
And I'm so tired of being alone

9. The Cramps: Fever

Inspirational lyric:

When you put your arms around me
I get a feeling that's hard to bear
You give me fever, when you kiss me
Fever when you hold me tight
Fever in the morning
Fever all through the night

10. The Specials Do Nothing

Inspirational lyric:

I'm just living in a life without meaning
I walk and walk, do nothing
I'm just living in a life without feeling
I talk and talk, say nothing

1980's most anxious songs about nuclear war

U.K. Subs : Warhead

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On March 2, 1980 the English punk band UK Subs entered the UK charts at #42 with "Warhead", one of the year's most anxious nuclear war songs. In the midst of the Cold War, we were all living with the possibility that a nuclear war could break out at any moment.  The evening news reported escalating tensions between Russia and the United States, especially after Russian invaded Afghanistan. There were new countries with nuclear capabilities.  The weapons were more powerful than ever.  With its lyrics "Bye bye planet let alone your nation", "Warhead" would peak at UK#30, but it is far from the only song of the year to deal with nukes.

Top 10 Anxious Nuclear War Songs of 1980

1. UK Subs  "Warhead"

While the heads of state are having their fun Are they ready?
We're looking at the world through a barrel of a gun Are we ready?
You stand there beating on your little war drum Are you ready?
And it won't be long before your time has come Are you ready?

2. The Sound "Missiles"

Missiles cause damage
And make an eerie sound
Missiles leave carnage
Where there once was a town
Who the hell makes those missiles?

3. Peter Gabriel Games Without Frontiers

If looks could kill, they probably will
In games without frontiers, war without tears

4. The Police : When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around
Plug in my M.C.I
To exercise my brain
Make records on my own
Can't go out in the rain...
When the world is running down
You make the best of what's still around

5. The Clash : Ivan Meets G.I. Joe
He wiped the Earth clean as a plate
What does it take to make a Ruskie break?
But the crowd are bored and off they go
Over the road to watch China blow

6. XTC : Living Thru Another Cuba

Russia and America are at each other's throats
But don't you cry
Just on your knees and pray, and while you're
Down there, kiss your arse goodbye

7. Kate Bush : Breathing
We've lost our chance
We're the first and the last, ooh
After the blast Chips of plutonium
Are twinkling in every lung

8. The Specials : Man at C + A
Warning, warning, nuclear attack
Atomic sounds designed to blow your mind
World war three - nuclear attack
Rocking atomically - this third world war - atomic sounds

9. OMD : Enola Gay

These games you play, they're gonna end in more than tears someday
Uh huh Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way

10. Data Fallout 

You'd better run for shelter, and put yourself in a Fallout suit
You'd better get yourself used to, just living in a Fallout suit
A satellite clockwork information, is going to give you
The duration Of the fallout

The Ska EP that topped the UK charts

The Special A.K.A. featuring Rico: Too Much Too Young

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On January 20, 1980 The Specials live EP Too Much Too Young entered the UK charts at #15, credited to The Special A.K.A. Within  a week it would leap over Madness's "My Girl" and The Beat's "Tears of a Clown" all the way to #1. Aside from the well known title track, the extended play also includes ska standards like The Skatalites's "Guns of Navarone", The Pioneers's "Long Shot Kick The Bucket", The Harry J Allstars 1969 hit "The Liquidator" and "Skinhead Moonstomp", by Symarip.

"Too Much Too Young" might have been a good description of Specials keyboardist Jerry Dammers, who was also the running the Two Tone label. With an American tour, the label, a soundtrack that needed to be mixed for Dance Craze, Dammers was working himself to the point of collapse. 

At the same time,  2-Tone inspired suits, sweat shirts, hats, badges and t-shirts were being sold by companies that paid his label nothing. This ad is from a 1980 copy of Smash Hits.

By the Fall of 1980, The Specials would unveil a new sound and by the following year, tensions with the band would become insurmountable. 

Stop Your Messing Around

The Specials : A Message to You Rudy

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On October 19, 1979 The Specials released their self-titled debut album in the U.K. Hailing from the industrial town of Coventry, the seven piece mixed race ska band, dressed up in tonic suits, button-down shirts, skinny ties, wraparound sunglasses, pork pie hats, and loafers. Keyboardist Jerry Dammers had not only written most of the songs and founded the band. He was also the brains behind the 2 Tone label that released this album and singles like "Gangsters", "The Prince", "On My Radio" and the upcoming "Tears of a Clown"/"Ranking Full Stop" by the Beat.

"I always had ideas of how I wanted it to go and part of the idea was for similar bands not to compete together and to work together," Dammers told BBC 4 in a radio documentary called This Are 2 Tone.

Elvis Costello offered to produce The Specials.

"Jerry Dammers was taking riffs from old Prince Buster records and Rock Steady obscurities and saying a number of things that needed saying right then. Like "You've done too much, much too young." And "It doesn't make it alright," Costello writes in Unfaithful Music + Disappearing Ink. "“My job was to get the band on tape before some more skilled producer got ahold of them and screwed it up completely, by perfecting things that didn’t need perfecting.” 

While punk bands were tossing out anti-Thatcher slogans, The Specials focused on the personal issues they faced every day in Coventry: racism, birth control, domestic violence. That said, half the songs are covers from artists like Dandy Livingstone ( A Message to You Rudy), Toots Hibbert (Monkey Man) and Clement Seymour (You're Wondering Now) 

The debut is one of the most highly rated albums of the year.finishing #10 on NME's list and #1 on the Sounds list. 

From Red Starr writing for Smash Hits gave the album a 9/10:

Sick of overnight ska trendies? Me too. But hang on --this album is actually very good with The Specials showing enough genuine talent to outlast any passing fashion. Good balance of old and new songs, some excellent original touches (especially the very strong lyrics), first rate production by Elvis Costello, fourteen tracks--a very promising debut and highly recommended. 

Vivien Goldman of Melody Maker was disappointed:

"A key word is pace. The Specials—a great band to party to—can't sustain the shock of having the speed of certain numbers halved. When the pace on record doubles—as in 'Too Much Too Young'—The Specials suddenly make sense".

When the album finally came out in America in 1980 Jim Farber of Creem wrote 

The sound on the album, captured by producer Elvis Costello, is wonderfully derivative of Nick Lowe's dial twisting. Musically, the album ranges from straight ska ("A Message To You Rudy") to the kind of nauseous pop XTC and The Pretenders do so well ("Gangsters"). A lot of it is as danceable as a B-52's record and on many levels as funny, with Terry Hall singing as though his tongue is miles thick and his saliva is green and sticky.

This is an album I bought on cassette in 1980 and have always treasured. So much so that I put off writing about it until the night before I posted this. 

With a Rocksteady Beat

Madness : The Prince

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In August of 1979, Madness released their debut single "The Prince" b/w "Madness" on the 2 Tone label founded by Jerry Dammers of The Specials. "The Prince" is a tribute to Jamaican ska singer Prince Buster whose song "Madness" gave the Camden Town band its name and whose "One Step Beyond" would be the follow-up single. The Specials' "Gangsters", climbing the charts at U.K.#14, also sampled Prince Buster. 

This performance on Top of the Pops, with bass former bass player Chas Smith fulfilling his new role as dancer and backing vocalist, won over fans. After scoring a U.K.#16 with the debut single and #7 with "One Step Beyond", Madness would become one of the biggest U.K. bands of the 1980s.

Are You Planning a Bootleg LP?

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.