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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still the Heavyweight Champions of the Ska Revival, February 25, 2005
The Specials are still the heavyweight champions of both waves of ska revivals (in the UK and later in the USA). I saw the Specials just before this album was released in 1979 at a Rock Against Racism concert in London's Hyde Park. I was warned by my two British hosts that the Specials would "blow my mind."... but nothing could have prepared me for the inspired anarchy of this young racially mixed Brits playing music that sounded like reggae on steroids. The two manic singers Terry Hall and Neville Staples bounced around the stage and banged their heads together in time to the music. The entire band had buzz cut hairdos and dressed like thrift shop refugees complete with Sinatra type fedoras, skinny ties and ill fitting suits. By the end of the show the entire stage was filled with frantically pogoing audience members and the Specials played on, as if the audience and the band were the same thing. Everything I learned about ska music started with that Specials concert in 1979.
The reason why the Specials were so...errr...special was that they were first rate musicians who not dilletantes when it came to knowledge of the early Jamaican ska and rocksteady music. Jerry Dammers was raised on the music of Prince Buster, the Skatalites, Desmond Dekker, Byron Lee and the stable of ska musicians that were part of Duke Reid's venerable British label, Trojan Records. In the UK, Trojan Records had a steady stream of bestselling ska records in the UK in the mid-Sixties. Even the godfather of punk, John Lydon, who was notorious for ridiculing any kind of popular music once professed that reggae and ska were the only music he cared about. Meanwhile, in the USA, our only knowledge of ska was 1965's infectious hit by Millie Small, "My Boy Lollipop." In the Sixties, there was little room on American radio playlists for obscure Jamaican musicians playing gimmicky West Indian pop. If anyone raised the profile of ska music in America, it was the Specials.
The songs of this album represent a fusion the anarchy of punk with the frenetic riddims of ska. It is a snapshot of a near-perfect moment in music. Elvis Costello's "ragged but right" production style resembled that of his own producer, Nick Lowe who earned the nickname "Basher" for his rough-hewn sound. "Doesn't Make It Alright" is the Special's anti-racism anthem that was a response to the National Front's campaign to bash forgien nationals from the West Indies and Pakistan who were new immigrants to London during that period. Terry Hall as the prosecuter and Neville Staples as "Judge Dread" engage in a hilarious satire of a kangaroo court in the song "Stupid Marriage." The ribald humor of "Stupid Marriage" was actually a Jamican ska reworking of Shorty Long's late Sixties R&B hit "Here Comes the Judge." "Blank Expression" was a cry against apathy and ignorance. The covers of ska classics like "A Message To Rudy" and Prince Buster's classic "Too Hot" showcase the muscular playing of the band. The cover of the Maytal's classic "Monkey Man" fires a hilarious shot from the hip at the Thatcher enthusiasts in the pompous chambers of the House of Lords, comparing the Britian's nobility to inbred baboons. The addition of trombonist Rico Rodriquez, who was a transplanted Jamaican with an involvment in the ska's early Sixties roots lent the Specials an authenticity that few of their peers could claim. Drummer John Bradbury and bassist Horace Gentleman punched up the ska sound with a heavy drum n' bass sound that appealed to the younger generation accustomed to the hard charging punk rock sound.
By the mid-Eighties the ska music revival had ebbed all too early in the UK. I always felt that the 2 Tone Records bands like the dubwise Beat (aka the English Beat), the hyper-manic Madness and the ultra-cool stylists, the Selector were among the best things about the post-punk movement. There was a second wave revival of ska music in the United States in the Nineties, but none of the stateside ska bands posessed the talent, imagination or authenticity of their UK counterparts. The Specials were the flagship of the ska revival and their magnificent but short lived career brought the joy of ska music to a lot of people who otherwise would have never heard it. I don't deejay much these days, but in the early Eighties no party or dance was complete until the floor was filled with estatic dancers slamming to the riddims of "Concrete Jungle." Those were the days, my friend.
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49 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An all time Classic, July 14, 2000
This is clearly the best Ska record ever made. Their debut album (the BBC had just aired The Specials John Peel Sessions, but it was not yet for sale. Also, their true debut was a 45rpm single of Gangsters whose B-side was titled The Selector and credited to The Selector, but in reality, The Selector was Jerry Dammers, John Bradbury, both from The Specials, and two of their roommates. I think it is the best song The Selector ever did). If you listen to earlier versions of these songs available elsewhere, you can see how much they honed everything. The Specials had toured the U.K. supporting The Clash, and as a result you can hear more Clash-like-Grit on this album, and you can also see The Specials influence on Clash songs like Pressure Drop, very Ska. I like everything about this album, every song. I still remember my high school English tutor in the 9th grade (I was really bad in school) who was more interested in shaping my musical tastes, and my sister, English was third on his list. He made me a tape of this album with the This Are Two Tone compilation on the second side. I listened to that tape for years, before they had tape-players that would flip the tape for you. I remember one time I accidentally hit "Record", so to this day I am surprised there is no gap at the beginning of "Concrete Jungle". Not too long ago, I was invited to several Specials shows. My friend had gone to school with Mark Addams (keyboards) in Coventry and whenever they'd come to San Francisco my friend rob would arrange to have us on the list. They have altered the band since 1980 (when this album came out), a few new members, but they still have Neville Staples(who looks even cooler today), Horace Panter, Roddy Radiation, and Lynval Golding. They preformed these songs in a dizzying frenzy. After each show we'd go backstage with them (once to the Green-Room of the legendary Fillmore Auditorium!) and one time on their tour bus somewhere in Santa Cruz. My friends wife was blind, so she had a seeing-eye-Doberman with her. We were on this crowded bus, with the band, this huge dog and scattered other people. They were playing some old sixties Ska on the bus stereo, and Lynval Golding (guitarist) danced with the seeing-eye-dog, and I cracked a corny joke, which I began to regret as I was saying it. I said to Mr. Golding, "Do The Dog!" (referring to their song by the same name) then my ears began to turn red. He thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard and slapped his leg as he laughed. He put his rude-boy hat on my head, which was pathetically loose, and laughed his way to the ice-chest and he fetched two beers and brought one to me as his laughter died down. The joke seemed rather obvious to me. He took his hat back as he gave me the beer. It was all very weird. Anyway, this is the album to have. I have many Specials albums, and would choose this one over all the rest, or any other Ska band, there is No Doubt about that. If you have never heard this album but are considering it, then trust the instincts that brought you this far and get it, if you remember this album from your youth but haven't gotten around to getting it on CD I suggest you drop everything and get it, and get Led Zeppelin IV another time. This album has aged very well.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Interesting Revisit of an Undisputed Classic, May 30, 2002
By my own admission, I was late to the Two Tone party when I started collecting in 1986. I was fortunate enough to gather most of the original UK singles; for the albums, however, by and large I bought the US pressings. This was true for the Specials debut long player. When I received this new remaster as a gift, I was pleasantly taken aback to discover that EMI used the original UK sequence (a move that caught the label flak when they did the same with many of the Beatles reissues a few years ago). What does this mean for those of us who had the US version? One, you'll have to pick up a Specials or a Two Tone label greatest hits to get the tune "Gangsters." Conversely, it provides the sequence that was heard in the band's homeland, which, one would think, is how the band wanted you to hear it, before Chrysalis US meddled in it. Also of interest, which I think is exclusive to this CD (though it may have been on the original UK album), is the (unlisted) dubwise remix of "Too Much Too Young" following the original vocal cut. Otherwise, everything you need is here - the classic cover of the Dandy Livingstone's rudeboy admonition "A Message to You, Rudy," the kinetic version of The Maytals' "Monkey Man" (currently the soundtrack to a credit card TV commercial), the plaintive "You're Wondering Now," the hysterical "Nite Klub" and "Stupid Marriage," and the social warnings of "Too Much Too Young." An essential snapsnot of the union of deep roots reggae and punk that fused in troubled, late-'70s northern England.
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