More Specials
Artist(s):
Specials
Label: Two Tone
Publisher(s):
Two Tone
Studio: Two Tone
Manufacturer: Two Tone
Binding: Audio CD
MPN: 37699
Format(s): Enhanced, Original recording remastered
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £4.98
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Similar Items:
The Specials
You Just Can't Beat It: the Best of the Beat
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Greatest Hits
The Specials Singles: the Best of the Specials
Ska'd for Life: A Personal Journey with the "Specials"
Stereo-Typical (A's, B's and Rarities)
Too Much Pressure
One Step Beyond...
Too Much Too Young - Live
Track Listing
1.
Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)
2.
Man At C & A
3.
Hey Little Rich Girl
4.
Do Nothing
5.
Pearl's Cafe
6.
Sock It To 'Em Jb
7.
Stereotype/Stereotypes Pt 2
8.
Holiday Fortnight
9.
I Can't Stand It
10.
International Jet Set
11.
Enjoy Yourself (Reprise)
Customer Reviews
The Specials overcome `difficult second album syndrome'
With 1980's adventurous More Specials the Coventry band overcame the 'difficult second album syndrome', a fate which has befallen many an artist over the years. They did this by broadening their musical palette; where their classic debut (effectively) embraces the ska and reggae of Prince Buster, The Skatalites and Toots and The Maytals, this album sees them venturing into a wider variety of genres, including northern soul (`Sock It To `Em J.B.'), spaghetti westerns soundtracks (`Stereotypes') and easy listening (`Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)'). That is not to say they jettisoned all that made The Specials so exciting and different: lead singer Terry Hall still delivers his vocals with a flat, deadpan delivery and the lyrics and subject matter remain rooted in the prosaic. In place of the girls in footless tights in night clubs and concrete jungles of their first album, More Specials has a wealthy, naive young women from the provinces who is bedazzled by the bright lights of London (`Hey, Little Rich Girl') and refers to a budget clothing retailer well-known on British high streets (`Man At C&A').
This is not necessarily an album for those who came to The Specials as lovers of the home-grown 2-Tone Ska movement that included Madness, The Selecter and The Beat (`Not so much Channel 1 [the recording studio in Jamaica], as Radio 2' as style magazine The Face correctly pointed out at the time). It is, however, a bold experiment which generally pays off.
Missing Songs
Great Album But Where's Rude Boys Outta(Version) Jail And Braggin' And Trying Not To Lie? Two Great Songs Missing From One Great Album, Worth Looking Elsewhere With Whole Album Intact In My Opinion.
Exactly What it Says on the Tin
The difficulty of producing a perfect debut album is how can you follow it. The Specials debut album and live sound with its up-date of Ska had not only been a huge success in it's own right but had started a movement with bands such as Madness, The Beat and Bad Manners becoming over night successes but kick started the careers, long over, of the stars of sixties Ska. Conscious not to repeat them selves unofficial group leader, Jerry Dammers, and soundman, the late Dave Jordan set about the impossible.
Opener is the standard `Enjoy Yourself' and although Ska legend Prince Buster played this song The Specials go for a orthodox rock-pop arrangement to open the album in urgent party style. `Man at C & A' is the Terry Hall's perfect state on the Nation address in a punk ska hybrid which flows perfectly into Roddy Radiation's rockabilly masterpiece `Hey, Little Rich Girl'. Ska pleasers `Do Nothing' (later to be the albums hit single) and the perfect `Pearl's Cafe' take us back to the classic Specials sound before the Northern Soul anthem `Sock it to `em JB' ends side one leaving us in wonder that a Ska band could play Northern Soul this well.
Side two opens with the taster single, cocktail jazz dub reggae `Stereotypes' with its two piece constructions gives us a Neville Staples toast which is perhaps a little too long. Calypso instrumental `Holiday Fortnight' is a lot better than it has any right to be and acts as the perfect bridge to Hall and ex-Bodysnatchers Rhoda Dakar's duet anti-love song `I Can't Stand it'. Parody of `Going to Barbados' `International Jet Set' is the perfect embodiment of the new Specials sound with it's muzzack influence coming to the fore. This is etherised with the perfect closer a Bontemps organ driven reprise of `Enjoy Yourself' which always leaves me wanting to play the whole thing over again.
And so now we know how to follow a perfect debut album, you make a perfect follow up album.
Sounds even better now than when I was 15!
I was a bit of a rude boy, back in 1980. I have fond memories of strutting around North London in my Harrington jacket, Fred Perry shirt, white socks, braces and tassled loafers. I wasn't a skinhead then but I am now! When CDs came out, I stupidly gave away all my vinyl to charity shops, including More Specials.
Making a welcome return to my music collection, More Specials is such an overlooked gem. I notice it did make it into "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" but you are unlikely to find it in a top 50 or 100 list.
It's difficult to put into words why this album is such a treat. It's somehow timeless, borrowing from the '60s and '70s, rooted in the '80s but not out of place in the '90s and '00s. In fact, it doesn't sound at all dated. I recommend playing along side the likes of Massive Attack, Gorillaz and Lilly Allen, all clearly inspired and influenced by The Specials.
Finally, a word to the wise. Check the small print on the back of the CD and buy the enhanced CD which includes original videos of Ghost Town and Rat Race - two very special singles.
The most influential album of the last 25 years??
OK, maybe that was a bit strong but this really is a CLASSIC!!! Like the previous reviewer said you really can trace a line from this group (and especially this album) to groups as diverse as Happy Mondays/Black Grape, Tricky, Massive Attack, The Streets, Plan B & Lily Allen.
The Specials were one of the biggest groups in the country when they released this and it was always seen as a bit of a letdown by the hardcode skinhead/rude boy fanbase compared to their debut. But, to those that love groups that mess with the formula it has become seen as a work of near genius.
Can you imagine the careerists of today like the Kooks or Razorlight doing an album of Bulgarian Folk Music or ambient house? Of course you can't, they are too worried about shifting units and marketing to risk real experimentation with the music. The Specials made an album featuring muzak, the sort of stuff you hear in hotel lifts and supermarkets and mixed it with lyrics about alienation, the futility of the saturday night beer boy life & paranoia about impending nuclear war and you could still dance to it!
If you haven't got this album - get it now! I bought it in 1981 aged 9 and I still love it to this day. The only slight grumble is that there are no extras. It must surely be worth the deluxe treatment including 'Bragging not trying to lie' & 'Rude boys outta Jail (version)' - the free seven inch that came with copies of the album back in the dim & distant. There is also some great B sides from that time and amazing live tracks (the Specials were the greatest live band ever - fact!!).
So, buy this and Enjoy yourself (it's later than you think).
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