History Music / TheSpecials

* SpecialGuest: {{Music/Madness}} saxophonist Lee Thompson contributed a solo on the ''More Specials'' album.

Dammers was undoubtedly the driving force behind the band and perhaps even the entire 2 Tone movement. As one of the founders of 2 Tone Records, Dammers provided a springboard for many aspiring ska groups thanks to the 2 Tone policy of contracting an artist for one single with no obligation to produce further records for the label. Bands who benefitted from these unconventional arrangements included {{Music/Madness}} and The Beat, both of whom released successful debut singles under the 2 Tone label before moving on to different companies.

* CoolOldGuy: They recruited the original 1960s Jamaican ska trombonist Rico Rodriguez to play with them. He was never a full member of the band, but several of their songs feature him prominently, such as "Ghost Town," "Guns of Navarone," and "A Message to You, Rudy." Rodriguez was already in his mid-40s when ''The Specials'' was released, putting him at least a decade ahead of everyone else.
** The band members themselves began to fit this trope starting with the 2009 tour, as they were all 50 or older at the time.

* GenreRoulette: The first album is ska, but with a punk influence in the speed and ferocity with which they played (and Terry Hall's unconventional singing style). The 'second' album features a mélange of styles, ranging from easy listening and exotica to jazz.

* TheStoic: Terry Hall again. Onstage he rarely smiled or laughed and sometimes performed with his back to the audience. He didn't dance either.

* PerpetualFrowner: Terry Hall is one of the best-known examples of an unsmiling frontman in popular music.

* TheStoic: Terry Hall again, who never seemed to have any kind of facial expression and sometimes performed with his back to the audience.

Leading members of Britain's second-wave ska revival, their sound - popularly known as 2 Tone - was a combination of danceable {{Ska}} and energetic PunkRock, popular in Britain at the time. Their most recognised, seven-man line-up consisted of Terry Hall (vocals), Neville Staple (vocals, toasting), Jerry Dammers (organ, main songwriter), Roddy Byers (lead guitar), Lynval Golding (rhythm guitar, vocals), Horace Panter (bass guitar) and John Bradbury (drums). Horn players Rico Rodriguez (trombone) and Dick Cuthell (trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn) were included as honourary members during their late-seventies heyday.

Leading members of Britain's second-wave ska revival, their sound - popularly known as 2 Tone - was a combination of danceable {{Ska}} and energetic PunkRock, popular in Britain at the time. Their most recognised, seven-man line-up consisted of Terry Hall (vocals), Neville Staple (vocals, toasting), Jerry Dammers (organ, main songwriter), Roddy Byers (lead guitar), Lynval Golding (rhythm guitar), Horace Panter (bass guitar) and John Bradbury (drums). Horn players Rico Rodriguez (trombone) and Dick Cuthell (trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn) were included as honourary members during their late-seventies heyday.

Dammers was undoubtedly the driving force behind the band and perhaps even the entire 2 tone movement. As one of the founders of 2 Tone Records, Dammers provided a springboard for many aspiring ska groups thanks to the 2 Tone policy of contracting an artist for one single with no obligation to produce further records for the label. Bands who benefitted from these unconventional arrangements included {{Music/Madness}} and The Beat, both of whom released successful debut singles under the 2 Tone label before moving on to different companies.

The band that would become the Specials was formed as the Automatics in 1977 in [[UsefulNotes/TheMidlands Coventry, England]]. They would rename themselves as the Coventry Automatics, then the Special AKA, and finally the Specials in 1978. Leading members of Britain's second-wave ska revival, their sound - popularly known as 2 Tone - was a combination of danceable {{Ska}} and energetic PunkRock, popular in Britain at the time. Their most recognised, seven-man line-up consisted of Terry Hall (vocals), Neville Staple (vocals, toasting), Jerry Dammers (organ, main songwriter), Roddy Byers (lead guitar), Lynval Golding (rhythm guitar), Horace Panter (bass guitar) and John Bradbury (drums). Horn players Rico Rodriguez (trombone) and Dick Cuthell (trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn) were included as honourary members during their late-seventies heyday.

The band that would become the Specials was formed as the Automatics in 1977 in [[UsefulNotes/TheMidlands Coventry, England]]. They would rename themselves as the Coventry Automatics, then the Special AKA, and finally the Specials in 1978. Leading members of Britain's second-wave ska revival, their sound - popularly known as 2 Tone - was a combination of danceable {{Ska}} and energetic PunkRock, popular in Britain at the time. Their most recognised, seven man line-up consisted of Terry Hall (vocals), Neville Staple (vocals, toasting), Jerry Dammers (organ, main songwriter), Roddy Byers (lead guitar), Lynval Golding (rhythm guitar), Horace Panter (bass guitar) and John Bradbury (drums). Horn players Rico Rodriguez (trombone) and Dick Cuthell (trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn) were included as honourary members during their late-seventies heyday.

Popular in their day, many of their lyrics were socially and politically conscious. Their number-one hits, "Too Much Too Young" and "Ghost Town," encouraged contraception and attacked the [[UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher Thatcher government]] for its role in creating unemployment respectively. Dammers was also strongly anti-racist and wanted to use his music to promote racial harmony and attack the [[ThoseWackyNazis National Front]]. The music itself was generally standard ska fare, characterised by syncopated guitar chops, energetic Hammond organ accompaniments and reasonably simple horn arrangements; Rodriguez had played with several first wave ska artists in Jamaica before he moved to the UK. As front man, Hall had a sarcastic, expressionless delivery which contrasted with Staple's energetic, wacky toasting (scat-style chanting or talking over the music).

The band released two albums (''The Specials'' and ''More Specials'') and seven consecutive top ten singles before breaking up in 1981 when Hall, Staple and Golding left to form a new group (Music/TheFunBoyThree), Byers struck out on his own and Panter decided to quit. Reverting back to the original name of the Special AKA, Dammers kept the band going long enough to make a third, less successful album titled ''In the Studio'' (though the single "Nelson Mandela" was a hit), and the group had disappeared by the mid-1980s. After several attempts to get the band back together during TheNineties, the Specials reformed in 2009 with a new horn section and their original lineup - with the conspicuous absence of Dammers, who claimed that the other members had forced him out of the band.

Bradbury died at the age of 62 on December 28, 2015. Rodriguez had died three months earlier at the age of 80. As of 2022, Golding, Hall, and Panter are the three original members still active with the band.

* CreativeDifferences: Hall, Staple and Golding left partly because they disliked the gloomy tone the songs were taking on after the second album was released. Roddy Radiation's departure was to a certain extent attributed to his feelings that Dammers didn't appreciate his own songwriting efforts.

* GreatestHits: They released two albums, one EP and a non-album single under the original lineup. Almost all of the fifteen Specials compilation albums includes songs drawn almost exclusively from these sources.

* TakeThat: Most of what Jerry Dammers wrote was a Take That against somebody, be it UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher, the National Front, women in general or the band's own fans.

The band that would become the Specials was formed as the Coventry Automatics in 1977 in [[UsefulNotes/TheMidlands Coventry, England]]. Leading members of Britain's second-wave ska revival, their sound - popularly known as 2 Tone - was a combination of danceable {{Ska}} and energetic PunkRock, popular in Britain at the time. Their most recognised, seven man line-up consisted of Terry Hall (vocals), Neville Staple (vocals, toasting), Jerry Dammers (organ, main songwriter), Roddy Byers (lead guitar), Lynval Golding (rhythm guitar), Horace Panter (bass guitar) and John Bradbury (drums). Horn players Rico Rodriguez (trombone) and Dick Cuthell (trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn) were included as honourary members during their late-seventies heyday.

Bradbury died at the age of 62 on December 28, 2015. Rodriguez had died three months earlier at the age of 80. As of 2017, Golding, Hall, and Panter are the three original members still active with the band.

* TheAlcoholic: The main character of "Stereotype" is a heavy drinker and womanizer who catches an STD and has to lay off alcohol while taking medicine to clear it up. As soon as he's cured, he gets completely blitzed and crashes his car while fleeing from the police.

* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: Music/BobDylan's "Maggie's Farm" was originally about his dissatisfaction with the folk music scene he emerged from. In the Specials' hands, it became a TakeThat against Margaret Thatcher.

* GreatestHits: They released two albums, one EP and a non-album single under the original line up. Almost all of the fifteen Specials compilation albums includes songs drawn almost exclusively from these sources.

* SelfTitledAlbum: The first two albums, ''Specials'' and ''More Specials''.

The band released two albums and seven consecutive top ten singles before breaking up in 1981 when Hall, Staple and Golding left to form a new group (Music/TheFunBoyThree), Byers struck out on his own and Panter decided to quit. Reverting back to the original name of the Special AKA, Dammers kept the band going long enough to make a third, less successful album (though the single "Nelson Mandela" was a hit), and the group had disappeared by the mid-1980s. After several attempts to get the band back together during TheNineties, the Specials reformed in 2009 with a new horn section and their original lineup - with the conspicuous absence of Dammers, who claimed that the other members had forced him out of the band.

* CoolOldGuy: They recruited the original 1960s Jamaican ska trombonist Rico Rodriguez to play with them, notably including the famous trombone part on "Ghost Town".

* ProtestSong: "Free Nelson Mandela" and "War Crimes", both released by Dammers after the original band broke up. The former is credited with making Nelson Mandela a ''cause celebre'' and is still a popular song in Africa.

Bradbury died at the age of 62 on December 28, 2015. Rodriguez had died three months earlier at the age of 80.

* ChildrenAreAWaste: Or at least unplanned children. "Too Much Too Young" castigates a young woman for sleeping around and ending up stuck in domestic life to look after an infant son who's going to add to the burden on England's welfare state.

* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: Subverted in "Too Much Too Young," whose lyrics castigate a young woman for sleeping around and ending up stuck in domestic life to look after an infant son.