Photo: The Specials were advocates of late-Seventies postmodern ska, the inventors of two-tone and quite simply one of the coolest, most important British bands of all time. In the space of just two years, from 1979 to 1981, the original Specials managed to embody the new decade’s violent energies, morals and conflicts – though always with an ironic and often sardonic detachment that kept the band cool as the Eighties grew increasingly hot. “Gangsters”, “Too Much Too Young”, “A Message To You, Rudy”, “Do Nothing”, “Rat Race”, “Ghost Town”, records that defined a generation who weren’t sure they wanted to be defined in the first place.
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