40 years today since debut Specials LP was released

[Harry]

I love everything about the first Specials L.P. It still holds up. It's still exciting, funny, inspiring, and cool as fuck.
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I got one art O'level it did nothing for me

[Halfy]

It's growing on me
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"And he listens to his stereo"

[bluearmy78]

Still a classic.
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The past is our knowledge, the present our mistake and the future we always leave too late.

[kennybacon]

If I was to give some negatives - they would be the album versions of Too Much Too Young and Concrete Jungle, which don't capture the energy of the band - as opposed to the later live recordings (Live EP and Dance Craze) of those songs.
A minor grumble, just makes me appreciate the live versions so much more.
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Bernie Rhodes Knows - Dont Argue

[bluearmy78]

Agreed about the album versions of concrete jungle and too much too young. The live versions are far superior. Would have liked Terrys vocals on the album version of concrete jungle.
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The past is our knowledge, the present our mistake and the future we always leave too late.

[Harry]

Neil Muholland wrote a book called 'Fear of Music'. His take on The Specials is that "They're heroes who proved you can change the world with an unwavering moral stance and some of the best f***ing pop music anyone in this country has ever made." Here are his comments about the debut album..
"'Just because you're nobody/Doesn't mean that you're no good'. What a line. Admittedly, at first glance, even first listen, it doesn't have the rapier wit of Lydon, nor the bravura word skill of Costello, nor the psycho-dramatic power of Ian Curtis. But this line from The Specials' 'Doesn't Make It Alright', sung by Terry Hall with a strength that reveals all the compassion behind it, is absolutely key to the extraordinary impact of what was, when you come right down to it, a ska revival band. The Specials made music about many things, but it always came down to one. The working class spent much of their time fighting each other. This is convenient for the ruling elite. So... stop. Divide and rule, racial difference, sexual distrust, bad environment and that good old 'no future' excuse were no excuse whatsover. Wise up. See
that our similarities are far deeper than our differences. Look at the real problem. Unite. Simple.
'Blank Expression', 'Stupid Marriage', 'Too Much Too Young' and 'Little Bitch' formed a mini-opera towards the album's end, a discourse on the young working-class male's fear of women. Rejection, girl-as-property, marriage, teen pregnancy, parenthood and the middle class inspire comedy, compassion, anger, revulsion and a brutally honest questioning of where boy-meets-girl goes from here, prefaced by the date-in-dystopia nightmare that is '(Dawning Of A) New Era'. And guitarist Roddy Radiation's 'Concrete Jungle' took the band's courage a step further, owning up to being personaly scared of violence, of not being hard, despite how sharp and hard they all looked on that generation-definging monochrome sleeve.
Most of us feel like nobodies. The Specials understood that and convinced a generation that they were good. We still live in a world that this record helped to shape."
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I got one art O'level it did nothing for me