More Specials

Feels like some elevator music, but an elevator in a weird fever dream that never really ends, but there is a fun dude dancing in the elevator with you so it’s okay.

The specials were my first album I got when we starting this adventure before we made the group. And let me tell you I did not need more specials

"guys you are pretty normal, you might wanna change your band name"

Some of the reggae/ska moments are chill and groovy, but then it hits moments where it feels like it's Happy Birthday To You level music.

This album really surprised me. It's different from anything I usually listen to and very different from anything else I've heard from this list but it goes hard. A lot of it has a 50s or 60s vibe but you can tell that it's from the 80s which is very cool to hear in the 2020s. I also like how it goes from being very upbeat and happy to rather dark and morbid by the end of the album. Enjoy Yourself is rather upbeat for the dark theme and it's fantastic. Then Man at C&A has warnings of a nuclear attack but is still energetic. I love the saxophone on Hey, Little Rich Girl because of course I do. Do Nothing features a strange piano part that gives an otherwise upbeat song a minor sound and a TROMBONE SOLO! Pearl's Cafe continues the trend of depressing lyrics with a cheery musical background, this time complete with a cheesy glockenspiel. It almost feels like carnival music (a carnival with people singing "it's all a load of bollocks"). But I would say that Stereotype is when the album really loses its cheerful disguise. I Can't Stand It continues this and International Jet Set ends with a plane crash leading into a much darker version of Enjoy Yourself to close off the album. Favorite songs: Enjoy Yourself; Hey, Little Rich Girl; Pearl's Cafe; Sock It to 'Em, J.B.; I Can't Stand It Least favorite songs: None Strong 8/10

Why has it taken me over 40 years to hear this gem? About half of the 21st century's music is influenced by this album. It's of its time, yet harkens strongly to the future. I thought Ghost Town was an outlier, but you can hear them building up to it. It's taken me nearly 50 years to realise what I need in an album - variety, but with an overarching connection. So many albums become boring, I'm thinking of famous ones like Exile On Main Street, and almost every electronic album. Then we have some that vary too much - psychedelic music springs to mind. This is why classic bands like Queen, Beatles, Led Zep, were able to release so many great albums: they instantly sound recognisable, but provide a dish of varied ingredients. Dammers nearly went too far - International Jet Set, but this is a great, skilful, sometimes funny, almost apocalyptic joy.

A deceptively casual title and cover photo frames this hugely inventive collection of songs. A joyful mix of ska, music hall, lounge and witty social commentary with a dash of dub and Goldfinger. As usual, I'll marvel how diverse, interesting and skillful "pop" bands used to be when I was young. So accomplished, they hadn't even written "Ghost Town" yet! I'll also take the opportunity to crown Terry Hall the King Of Fey (unless "Virgins and Philistines" awaits us?) - an all-time-great vocalist/songwriter dispensing absolute bangers in various styles consistently his whole life, from "Stereotype" here through many other '80s greats (look 'em up), Vegas (a secret fey classic), the best (non-football) Lightning Seeds song and a bouncy Arabic-y collaboration with Mushtaq. What a talent, sadly missed.

Baffled by some people giving this one star. I don't normally worry about opinions that differ from mine, but... eh? Anyway. I love The Specials. No, the singers don't sound like they could audition for X Factor. Thank goodness! Can people not hear the tight band, the wonderful cross rhythms in the bass and that punchy brass? All fronted by a laconic, grumpy Midlander and his mates, having fun but despairing at what's happening aroung them in Thatcher's Britain (and oh gawd, it got far worse), and/or making wry observations; I chortled more than once. My family are from Coventry, and I was 12 when this came out, so I'm biased. But surely, it's great isn't it? Did I mention I love The Specials? Their debut was maybe better, but this is ace.

Not my style... but listening nonetheless Suffering through this Don't like Not my style "I can't stand it" is nearly unlistenable. The female harmony is f*cking awful.

This is one of the worst bands I've ever heard. fuuuuuck it just sucks. This is the second album of theirs on this list so far, and neither of them is even worth wiping your arse with, let alone pretending it's "must hear before you die" material. 0/5.

Awful, serious ordeal to listen to the whole album.

...in which Jerry Dammers, grasping for artistic growth, destroys the band. It's a cautionary tale, and as old as the music industry itself. After a fantastic first album, cut essentially live in the studio highlighting the band's amazing live chemistry and energy, and a whirlwind of touring, they rush back into the studio to self-produce a more 'experimental' record. The band can't agree on a new direction. They ditch playing live in the studio for extensive over-dubbing. They take wild swings at new styles (rockabilly, northern soul, lounge music!) but the different songwriters are going in different directions. Is it an eclectic album or just disjointed? The exhaustion and infighting comes through in a cynical and often weary sounding record. The album is released to some acclaim, but the band splits on the subsequent tour. The end. Dammers himself later said that the band tried to go from Meet the Beatles to Sgt Peppers without any of the steps in between. I honour and respect their desire not to become trapped in a genre pigeonhole (a la Bad Manners). And this is by no means a Dexy's Midnight Runners-scale disaster -- the singles (including the non-album singles, like Rat Race and Ghost Town) are wonderful, and the creepy, cynical vibe was influential on trip hop. There are terrific moments here, even if the album as a whole is inconsistent and fragmented. Really, you can see that the record company needed to give the band a bit more time. With some rest and a more considered approach, this could have been a masterpiece, rather than a divisive experience that ultimately broke up the band.

Impossible not to get moving to the Specials.

The Specials- More Specials (1980): 7/10 Starts off on a bouncy ska sorta tone and continues to fuse many different genres throughout the album, utilizing many different instruments. Really weird, but in a good way. Probably not something I’d listen to in my spare time, but definitely a fun and interesting one time listen.

The only thing I like about the amount of times ska has been revived is that it has died so many times as well

Brilliant. So proud to be from Coventry and to have grown up in this era

Brutal.

Never listened to this is full. Pretty solid all round album with some real classics in the mix

Jerry Dammers, an interesting guy. Caught in the difficult second album conundrum he makes a valiant attempt to break away from the strictures imposed by the first album, while keeping the vibe going. You could argue he achieves that when the Fun Boys leave and he puts out In the Studio, maybe. But I remember loving this when it came out and on a deadbeat listen it is really good. There some cracking definitive Specials tunes on this: Do Nothing/International Jet Set/Rat Race/Stereotype and Enjoy Yourself and the weird Go Go's collaboration on the reprise. All are all smashingly good. Imagine if Jerry had put Ghost Town and its B side Friday Night Saturday Morning on the record, it would be a match for the first album. I get why it is here, it's a lot of fun and very cool.

This had the playful wobbliness of great dub, frequently surprising toylike sounds, and the sort of inventiveness that comes off as utterly free while born of hard experimentation. There’s a sour, sometimes nasty tang to the lyrics, which is era-appropriate, as is the Latin American burst on Holiday Fortnight.

So that's what "real" ska actually sounds like! I can get down with this.

Almost done with the album. This was just a fun listen. It's a bit trippy but I like it. I'll rate either a 3 or 4.

Not quite up to the standard of the debut album, but a good album nonetheless. Diluted a little by the variety of styles but still an enjoyable listen.

Diverse album, with just a solid set of tracks. Very fun, and I could see it growing on me for sure.

Wild time. Album was all over the place and just a lot of fun. Favorite tracks: “Man at C&A” and “Sock It To ‘Em”

They sum it up nicely themselves. "It's all a load of bullocks"

Nr. 130/1001 Enjoy Yourself 2/5 Men At C&A 2/5 Hey Little Rich Girl 3/5 Do Nothing 3/5 Pearl's Cafe 3/5 Sock It To 'Em J. B. 2/5 Stereotype, Stereotype, Pt. 2 2/5 Holiday Fortnight 3/5 I Can't Stand It 3/5 International Jet Set 2/5 Enjoy Yourself (Reprise) NR Average: 2,4 This just didn't click with me at all.

Some fun sounding songs but overall too inconsistent

Not 1 star bad but it's maybe a 1.5 for me so will lean on the generous side. Didn't click much at all.

The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature. One is that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: at each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. By the same token, they attract little attention in comparison with current troubles, which are both indisputable and pressing: whence the besetting temptation of all politics to concern itself with the immediate present at the expense of the future. Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: "If only," they love to think, "if only people wouldn't talk about it, it probably wouldn't happen." Perhaps this habit goes back to the primitive belief that the word and the thing, the name and the object, are identical. At all events, the discussion of future grave but, with effort now, avoidable evils is the most unpopular and at the same time the most necessary occupation for the politician. Those who knowingly shirk it deserve, and not infrequently receive, the curses of those who come after. A week or two ago I fell into conversation with a constituent, a middle-aged, quite ordinary working man employed in one of our nationalised industries. After a sentence or two about the weather, he suddenly said: "If I had the money to go, I wouldn't stay in this country." I made some deprecatory reply to the effect that even this government wouldn't last for ever; but he took no notice, and continued: "I have three children, all of them been through grammar school and two of them married now, with family. I shan't be satisfied till I have seen them all settled overseas. In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man." I can already hear the chorus of execration. How dare I say such a horrible thing? How dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings by repeating such a conversation? The answer is that I do not have the right not to do so. Here is a decent, ordinary fellow Englishman, who in broad daylight in my own town says to me, his Member of Parliament, that his country will not be worth living in for his children. I simply do not have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something else. What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking - not throughout Great Britain, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history. In 15 or 20 years, on present trends, there will be in this country three and a half million Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants. That is not my figure. That is the official figure given to parliament by the spokesman of the Registrar General's Office. There is no comparable official figure for the year 2000, but it must be in the region of five to seven million, approximately one-tenth of the whole population, and approaching that of Greater London. Of course, it will not be evenly distributed from Margate to Aberystwyth and from Penzance to Aberdeen. Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population. As time goes on, the proportion of this total who are immigrant descendants, those born in England, who arrived here by exactly the same route as the rest of us, will rapidly increase. Already by 1985 the native-born would constitute the majority. It is this fact which creates the extreme urgency of action now, of just that kind of action which is hardest for politicians to take, action where the difficulties lie in the present but the evils to be prevented or minimised lie several parliaments ahead. The natural and rational first question with a nation confronted by such a prospect is to ask: "How can its dimensions be reduced?" Granted it be not wholly preventable, can it be limited, bearing in mind that numbers are of the essence: the significance and consequences of an alien element introduced into a country or population are profoundly different according to whether that element is 1 per cent or 10 per cent. The answers to the simple and rational question are equally simple and rational: by stopping, or virtually stopping, further inflow, and by promoting the maximum outflow. Both answers are part of the official policy of the Conservative Party. It almost passes belief that at this moment 20 or 30 additional immigrant children are arriving from overseas in Wolverhampton alone every week - and that means 15 or 20 additional families a decade or two hence. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependants, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiancés whom they have never seen. Let no one suppose that the flow of dependants will automatically tail off. On the contrary, even at the present admission rate of only 5,000 a year by voucher, there is sufficient for a further 25,000 dependants per annum ad infinitum, without taking into account the huge reservoir of existing relations in this country - and I am making no allowance at all for fraudulent entry. In these circumstances nothing will suffice but that the total inflow for settlement should be reduced at once to negligible proportions, and that the necessary legislative and administrative measures be taken without delay. I stress the words "for settlement." This has nothing to do with the entry of Commonwealth citizens, any more than of aliens, into this country, for the purposes of study or of improving their qualifications, like (for instance) the Commonwealth doctors who, to the advantage of their own countries, have enabled our hospital service to be expanded faster than would otherwise have been possible. They are not, and never have been, immigrants. I turn to re-emigration. If all immigration ended tomorrow, the rate of growth of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population would be substantially reduced, but the prospective size of this element in the population would still leave the basic character of the national danger unaffected. This can only be tackled while a considerable proportion of the total still comprises persons who entered this country during the last ten years or so. Hence the urgency of implementing now the second element of the Conservative Party's policy: the encouragement of re-emigration. Nobody can make an estimate of the numbers which, with generous assistance, would choose either to return to their countries of origin or to go to other countries anxious to receive the manpower and the skills they represent. Nobody knows, because no such policy has yet been attempted. I can only say that, even at present, immigrants in my own constituency from time to time come to me, asking if I can find them assistance to return home. If such a policy were adopted and pursued with the determination which the gravity of the alternative justifies, the resultant outflow could appreciably alter the prospects. The third element of the Conservative Party's policy is that all who are in this country as citizens should be equal before the law and that there shall be no discrimination or difference made between them by public authority. As Mr Heath has put it we will have no "first-class citizens" and "second-class citizens." This does not mean that the immigrant and his descendent should be elevated into a privileged or special class or that the citizen should be denied his right to discriminate in the management of his own affairs between one fellow-citizen and another or that he should be subjected to imposition as to his reasons and motive for behaving in one lawful manner rather than another. There could be no grosser misconception of the realities than is entertained by those who vociferously demand legislation as they call it "against discrimination", whether they be leaderwriters of the same kidney and sometimes on the same newspapers which year after year in the 1930s tried to blind this country to the rising peril which confronted it, or archbishops who live in palaces, faring delicately with the bedclothes pulled right up over their heads. They have got it exactly and diametrically wrong. The discrimination and the deprivation, the sense of alarm and of resentment, lies not with the immigrant population but with those among whom they have come and are still coming. This is why to enact legislation of the kind before parliament at this moment is to risk throwing a match on to gunpowder. The kindest thing that can be said about those who propose and support it is that they know not what they do. Nothing is more misleading than comparison between the Commonwealth immigrant in Britain and the American Negro. The Negro population of the United States, which was already in existence before the United States became a nation, started literally as slaves and were later given the franchise and other rights of citizenship, to the exercise of which they have only gradually and still incompletely come. The Commonwealth immigrant came to Britain as a full citizen, to a country which knew no discrimination between one citizen and another, and he entered instantly into the possession of the rights of every citizen, from the vote to free treatment under the National Health Service. Whatever drawbacks attended the immigrants arose not from the law or from public policy or from administration, but from those personal circumstances and accidents which cause, and always will cause, the fortunes and experience of one man to be different from another's. But while, to the immigrant, entry to this country was admission to privileges and opportunities eagerly sought, the impact upon the existing population was very different. For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country. They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted. They now learn that a one-way privilege is to be established by act of parliament; a law which cannot, and is not intended to, operate to protect them or redress their grievances is to be enacted to give the stranger, the disgruntled and the agent-provocateur the power to pillory them for their private actions. In the hundreds upon hundreds of letters I received when I last spoke on this subject two or three months ago, there was one striking feature which was largely new and which I find ominous. All Members of Parliament are used to the typical anonymous correspondent; but what surprised and alarmed me was the high proportion of ordinary, decent, sensible people, writing a rational and often well-educated letter, who believed that they had to omit their address because it was dangerous to have committed themselves to paper to a Member of Parliament agreeing with the views I had expressed, and that they would risk penalties or reprisals if they were known to have done so. The sense of being a persecuted minority which is growing among ordinary English people in the areas of the country which are affected is something that those without direct experience can hardly imagine. I am going to allow just one of those hundreds of people to speak for me: “Eight years ago in a respectable street in Wolverhampton a house was sold to a Negro. Now only one white (a woman old-age pensioner) lives there. This is her story. She lost her husband and both her sons in the war. So she turned her seven-roomed house, her only asset, into a boarding house. She worked hard and did well, paid off her mortgage and began to put something by for her old age. Then the immigrants moved in. With growing fear, she saw one house after another taken over. The quiet street became a place of noise and confusion. Regretfully, her white tenants moved out. “The day after the last one left, she was awakened at 7am by two Negroes who wanted to use her 'phone to contact their employer. When she refused, as she would have refused any stranger at such an hour, she was abused and feared she would have been attacked but for the chain on her door. Immigrant families have tried to rent rooms in her house, but she always refused. Her little store of money went, and after paying rates, she has less than £2 per week. “She went to apply for a rate reduction and was seen by a young girl, who on hearing she had a seven-roomed house, suggested she should let part of it. When she said the only people she could get were Negroes, the girl said, "Racial prejudice won't get you anywhere in this country." So she went home. “The telephone is her lifeline. Her family pay the bill, and help her out as best they can. Immigrants have offered to buy her house - at a price which the prospective landlord would be able to recover from his tenants in weeks, or at most a few months. She is becoming afraid to go out. Windows are broken. She finds excreta pushed through her letter box. When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies. They cannot speak English, but one word they know. "Racialist," they chant. When the new Race Relations Bill is passed, this woman is convinced she will go to prison. And is she so wrong? I begin to wonder.” The other dangerous delusion from which those who are wilfully or otherwise blind to realities suffer, is summed up in the word "integration." To be integrated into a population means to become for all practical purposes indistinguishable from its other members. Now, at all times, where there are marked physical differences, especially of colour, integration is difficult though, over a period, not impossible. There are among the Commonwealth immigrants who have come to live here in the last fifteen years or so, many thousands whose wish and purpose is to be integrated and whose every thought and endeavour is bent in that direction. But to imagine that such a thing enters the heads of a great and growing majority of immigrants and their descendants is a ludicrous misconception, and a dangerous one. We are on the verge here of a change. Hitherto it has been force of circumstance and of background which has rendered the very idea of integration inaccessible to the greater part of the immigrant population - that they never conceived or intended such a thing, and that their numbers and physical concentration meant the pressures towards integration which normally bear upon any small minority did not operate. Now we are seeing the growth of positive forces acting against integration, of vested interests in the preservation and sharpening of racial and religious differences, with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow-immigrants and then over the rest of the population. The cloud no bigger than a man's hand, that can so rapidly overcast the sky, has been visible recently in Wolverhampton and has shown signs of spreading quickly. The words I am about to use, verbatim as they appeared in the local press on 17 February, are not mine, but those of a Labour Member of Parliament who is a minister in the present government: 'The Sikh communities' campaign to maintain customs inappropriate in Britain is much to be regretted. Working in Britain, particularly in the public services, they should be prepared to accept the terms and conditions of their employment. To claim special communal rights (or should one say rites?) leads to a dangerous fragmentation within society. This communalism is a canker; whether practised by one colour or another it is to be strongly condemned.' All credit to John Stonehouse for having had the insight to perceive that, and the courage to say it. For these dangerous and divisive elements the legislation proposed in the Race Relations Bill is the very pabulum they need to flourish. Here is the means of showing that the immigrant communities can organise to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal weapons which the ignorant and the ill-informed have provided. As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood." That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.

I love getting an album on this that I love but I don't know inside out. You get to discover new things and there is so much to discover in this fantastic album.

It's good to be wise when you're young cause you can only be young but the once Enjoy yourself and have lots of fun So glad and live life longer than you've ever done Enjoy yourself it's later than you think Enjoy yourself while you're still in the pink The years go by as quickly as you wink Enjoy yourself enjoy yourself it's later than you think Fun story, I discovered this album at the height of covid when I was out walking in a cemetery to get out of my house and get some exercise without being around anyone else. It profoundly affected me. 5/5

One of the greatest albums ever made. And the reason no Specials 'reunion' without Dammers was ever going to be anything more than a heritage tribute act. The musical sophistication and progression from the first album is impressive. Great arrangements, insightful lyrics and a fair dash of lighter touches too, even if they are somewhat sardonic. No treading water for this band. The songs flow seamlessly but are not one-dimensional. The adoption of easy listening stylings was way ahead of its time, and songs like Stereotype seem both of their time and timeless. An absolute classic.

wow. Just the tonic for a blue Monday. Fun Ska/Reggae/pop album, with just the right pep and humor. Greatly bookended by "Enjoy Yourself"

80s ska. Boppy, drunk reggae. Very British. Really fun and chill.

While I may like the first album more due to its tightness, it's the looseness here that makes this album a near masterpiece. It is all over the place. Fans of Sandinista will find a lot to like. I could see how an album like this would make a band. I'm happy they recorded it before they broke up.

Writing an lp is hard, writing a follow up to a classic album is near impossible. The biggest dig against this is it's not the first Specials lp. Starts strong, fades a little by the end. Wiki has Rat Race listed on the lp, while discogs entry for the original UK pressing excludes Rat Race but adds a bonus 7" with 2 extra tracks. I listened to the UK track listing and added Rat Race. Rat Race is a definite positive addition to this album.

The Specials continue their bouncy ska sound, with increased reggae and dub influences, but combine them increasingly bleak lyrics that span from nuclear anxiety to stories about domestic malaise. By the time you get to the reprise of "Enjoy Yourself" the speaker is practically dripping with sarcasm. A brilliantly dissonant album.

‘Does it get the toddlers dancing?’ Is a useful guide to music quality. This one got the toddlers dancing

...a band I grew up listening to and hugely influenced by, but I never explored beyond their first album. This is pretty ambitious, I can hear the future sounds of gorillaz in here and get the trip hop influence. It's fun, it's decent, it's not the best album, but there are good cuts on here.

I really enjoyed this one. A pleasant little ska romp. Pro tip: "International Jet Set" works really well in a Halloween playlist. THREE STARS

I wasn't feeling a need for cocktail ska in my life. I do appreciate what they did for the Go-Go's, though.

More Specials There are some great tracks on here; Man at C&A, Stereotype, Do Nothing, I Can’t Stand It, International Jet Set, the ebullient cover of Sock it to ‘em JB and the push of new influences and sounds on the music is estimable, if imperfect, ut it does feel a bit disjointed and the apparent exhaustion they were feeling definitely gives it a curious sense, a slightly flat, jaded feeling. The energy and focus of the first album has definitely dissipated, and you can feel the tension of the different members wanting to pull in different directions. It is an enjoyable album, but even with those highlights it’s clearly a notch or two below their debut, so I think it settles as a high 3. 🏁🏁🏁 Playlist submission: Stereotype

For the first half this is an alright ska album, but the sudden nosedives into the more lounge/muzak influenced material don't really do it for me. 6.5/10.

You expect greatness from Terry Hall. You expect banging ska from The Specials. This album feels like a a jam project in places - it lacks the innovation and hard edge of its predecessor. It's still a good album, and you begin to hear traces of ideas that led to Fun Boy Three, but ultimately it seems like this was rushed or received less care. "It's all a load of bollocks, and bollocks to it all" Terry sings. The album theme? Still gutted I didn't get to see them before he passed.

the difficult 2nd album, slips by without anything standing out

I remember seeing the Specials on the Warped Tour in 1998. For several of my friends, it was one of the most important things that could ever happen - apparently they didn’t tour much then or something. They didn’t really grab me at that show, but I wasn’t much of a ska fan then. I’m still not, if I’m being honest. This is a pretty good album, but it’s unlikely I’ll revisit it.

3.5 That was an interesting first listen. It started off with “Oh, ska. Nice!” and ended with “Wait wtf just happened?” It felt like a trip that started out all nice and fun and ended in a weirdly scary place. Can't say I didn't enjoy it though. I'm a sucker for horns.

More Specials sounds like a Wal-Mart commercial.

there are plenty of bands that fit the Ska bill. The Specials definitely work but if I was to choose an album of theirs that is representative of the genre; introduces listeners to on of 1,001 albums to listen to and influential albums of their discography or the genre in particular - this is not it. 2.5/5

Not my favorite

Early ska + Brit pop. Some fun beats but not my thing.

звучит хорошо, но немного нудно

Meh. Maybe the extended version left a bunch of stuff that didn’t need to be there. Kinda lame. I thought I liked the specials though

Easy 1 star for me, like the previous The Specials record. The weird thing to me is that I actually do see some good qualities in this record and can understand why people would like it, love it even. But there's just something about reggae - I can't even say what it is - that aggravates me so much. Something about the particular off-beat rhythms of reggae that just annoys me so incredibly much, even when it's over-layered with as many other influences and credible musicianship like on More Specials. I don't even think this is a bad album, but I don't want to hear a single second of it ever again.

Didn't enjoy. The music superficial; out of step with the lyrics (social change)

The styles on this album are a mish-mash of bleh. A lot of it has a ska feel, which has never been my favorite, and the rest was unappealing enough to make me almost turn it off. I finished it, and I like it slightly better than the Elvis album, but not enough to give it a 2-star rating.

Dobar dan na generatoru kad iskoči album na kom su skoro sve pjesme već lajkane. Instant pet zvjezdica! Kako volim ove ljude i ova oba albuma (iako je prvi, naravno, još legendarniji). Stereotype bih mogla slušati 24/7 kako me pjesma lijepo vozi (nekad i slušam ups).

What a surprise, did not think I was going to enjoy this as much as I did, felt like being at a party having lots of fun with friends, talking about life and other random bullshit, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

Skanking through the office right now. My boss thinks I've lost my marbles Brilliant!

Have always liked War and this album didn't disappoint!

Banger after banger. God I love the Specials. 10/10

Number: 126 Date: 5/9/2026 Artist: The Specials Album: More Specials Year: 1980 Genre: Post-Punk 2-Tone Exotica Familiarity: Extremely (5) Rating: 5 Before: ======= OK, now we're talking. This is one of my favorite albums of all time. It's going to get three 5's from me (personal, suitability, & impact). It's is one of the rare albums where most of the songs are a 5 and would definatley be a contender for my top 10 essential albums list, if I ever get around to making such a list. During: ======= 5 Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think) 5 Man At C & A 5 Hey, Little Rich Girl 4 Do Nothing 5 Pearl's Cafe 4 Sock It To 'Em J.B. 5 Stereotypes / Stereotypes Part 2 4 Holiday Fortnight 5 I Can't Stand It 5 International Jet Set 4 Enjoy Yourself (Reprise) ----------------------------------------------------- 4.74 WEIGHTED AVERAGE (accounts for song lengths) After : ======= 5 my personal rating 5 suitability for this list 4 impact ----------------------------------------------- 4.7 composite rating

The Specials are the epitome of fun.

Absolutely brilliant album

music is love

Its been way too long since I listened to this one. So much fun and charm, its okay to be aware cynical and yet fun

I enjoyed this! I liked the first song quite a lot

Absolutely fab in all ways. I'd heard the first record but never this, and I've gotta say that I reckon this one's better. They just sound like they're having so much fun playing and doing a damn good job doing so. Groovy and joyous all round

i liked this much more than the first specials album that I listened to a few weeks ago. more range

Amazing! Wish these freaking weirdos who reissue albums would stop changing the order of the original tracklist, though.

Their first album was a punk ska masterpiece, the album is more experimental and diverse.

Scientifically proven fact; most albums sound better on Friday.

Madness нравится мне больше. Но эти пацаны тоже круты

Britain raped much of the world, and gave us The Specials. So, I guess it's a wash. I don’t enjoy this album as much as their first album but I appreciate the changes they went with intentionally not being static. It's unique. Ghosttown is hypnotizing and one of my favorite songs. Nothing has a similar affect on me. This deserves a 5, but then the first album was a 5... fuck. If ever there was a cross-fade decision to make, this is it. 5. Because of Maggie's Farm.

Weird, perverse, and singular. Really I can’t think of many records that sound like it. Their first record didn’t indicate this was where they would go at all, and I’m not aware that they ever did anything comparable. I remember listening to this on an 8 track driving the back roads of a wrecked factory town in 1980 they would soon become the site of a major casino. No wonder it made perfect sense.

I don’t know why there’s a second Specials album on the list but I’m glad it’s here. Probably the best album that includes a mickey mouse impression

This is a bit Special ....

This album sounds like a ska party that slowly realizes the world’s ending but keeps dancing anyway. It’s manic, loungey, political, and existential — like apocalypse muzak. The Specials took their sharp, punk-ska energy and wrapped it in irony: cocktail-bar keyboards, doo-wop harmonies, and lyrics about nuclear dread and social collapse. It’s cheerful music for people who read the news too much. Rating: 4.6/5

Super fun! I really like the bullocks song

What the?? This was totally unexpected. Coming off of a hit and miss debut that featured a track that became a radio staple on both sides of the Atlantic, they managed the rarest of feats. They avoid cliche (ignoring the inevitable directives from the suits to “crank out more Messages to Rudy and you kids will have it made!”), leaned into and encouraged one another’s creative instincts and produced a sophomore album that is both far more interesting AND more focused (somehow). The songs are consistently engaging, the production is lush and gorgeous, and - the really incredible part for a band at this stage of their career - it neither drifts off course nor becomes monotonous. I was all set to complain that, 450 albums in I’ve now gotten twice the number of Specials albums as albums by Jamaican bands (paralleling this lists curious preference for mediocre Brit-kid-blues over the American originals). But goddamn, this album 100% belongs.

Proudly raising the freak flag. I loved this madhouse of an album. Why have I never heard "International Jet Set" before? Can't listen without dancing awkwardly around the house.

Yaaaah. Now we’re talking. If you spin this absolute gem and don’t have a great time….well, I don’t know what else to tell you.

10/10 aw man, their first album has such a special place in my heart, it’s great hearing this :)

Great album - gritty, bleak social commentary, but full of energy and fun. A strong 9 out of 10, but as out of 5 giving it the full 5 stars

The specials and Ghost town was the song that started my love for music. I was around 10-11 when I first heard it. At a butlins disco in Rhyl in wales.

Bloody marvellous. Enjoy yourself.

Excited to see this one today

Back when this type of music was at the forefront of Britain's pop scene, I hated The Specials and other bands of their ilk. Listening to this album has highlighted for me how much more open-minded I have become, because I really enjoyed it, and will add it to my Tidal library. That's something I could never have imagined back in my high-school years.

This band evokes fond recollections of my life when I was 17. Listening this vinyl masterpiece almost weekly. Got 3 albums, 1 of them still sealed.

Colonizer reggae but pioneering in a sense. I can't say that I don't like it.

Not my favorite Specials album, but I love 2 Tone. I love this sound. I'd rather listen to this then most of the albums on this list.

Classic Second Wave Ska rocking out. What's not to love?

Se non vi piace questo non vi piacerà mai il 2tone ska

Like a warm bath for your brain.

I enjoyed myself

God I love it. I was lucky enough to see The Specials and Terry Hall is one of my heroes. I Can’t Stand It really encapsulates the fact that the band were all pulling in different musical directions at this point, which caused tension and led to them splitting up a year later. But I’m fond of the busy yet lazy, reggae, lounge, punk, soul, mongrel product we end up with. Enjoy Yourself and Hey, Little Rich Girl are great fun, and more aligned with the sound of their debut album. International Jet Set, Man at C&A are class. Demented and eerie, scathing towards capitalist rat race types, unique arrangements going on. And best of all, Do Nothing is one of my favourite songs of all time. It paints a picture of a malaise across working class British youth in 1980, bored with Thatcherism, police brutality, racism, “living a life without meaning”. I prefer this album version to the much heralded remix with a more prominent string synthesiser. Being white and male, I’ve faced little persecution, but two police officers did once make me buy some Toilet Duck and mop up my own piss outside Subway City in Birmingham in front of queuing clubbers (let it be known, this was in a discreet side alley, I'm no an animal). It was quite the violation, and this song was looping in my head the whole time, and then the bouncers told them to fuck off, and Paul the cloak room bloke checked my jacket and my Toilet Duck into the cloak room and sold me some dodgy pills. It’s a 5 every time from this pop picker! It would be an enormously bloated 5 if Ghost Town and Friday Night, Saturday Morning could have somehow been on this. “Wish I had lipstick on my shirt, instead of piss stains on my shoes” will forever be my mantra.

Nicht schlecht! Macht Spaß!

A bit difficult for me to judge since it was a major favourite of mine at the time. The sounds are indeed eclectic and better for it. Lots of beats, ideas and great, great songs. They were the coolest bunch of guys and I absolutely love this album.

I enjoy this sound, I can definitely hear the bands they've inspired.