You do a great job trying to come to terms with The Specials first incarnation. Their self-titled debut is an absolute classic. And probably the one album release by The Specials that qualifies as the 2-tone/British Ska sound you were alluding. By their second release more Specials they had moved into all kinds of disparate musical areas. So In the Studio is really an extension of that. By 1984 most of the original Specials had left Dammers almost alone. Just the drummer remained. And if In The Studio had a weakness it was the loss of Terry Hall/Neville Staples the primary vocalists on the first two albums. I struggled with this album at the time, having loved the first two. But revisiting it a couple of years ago, I think I have developed a taste for the styles Dammers was aping. At the time the move away from the ska sound disappointed me. I am pleasantly surprised this made the list. Hopefully their more cohesive efforts show up later. I enjoyed your review, my only surprise being you didn't know more of their music. I thought they were a British institution.
Thanks for all this. They were definitely a thing in the UK, but at the time I was in high school into Uni, so a) didn't have a lot of money to splash around and b) music was quite ghetto-ised (still is), and I didn't move in the kind of circles that were heavily into 2-tone. We listened to the radio, and to the albums we bought, and to the albums our friends bought. So, I knew of them, of course, but only heard the radio stuff.
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You do a great job trying to come to terms with The Specials first incarnation. Their self-titled debut is an absolute classic. And probably the one album release by The Specials that qualifies as the 2-tone/British Ska sound you were alluding.
By their second release more Specials they had moved into all kinds of disparate musical areas. So In the Studio is really an extension of that.
By 1984 most of the original Specials had left Dammers almost alone. Just the drummer remained. And if In The Studio had a weakness it was the loss of Terry Hall/Neville Staples the primary vocalists on the first two albums.
I struggled with this album at the time, having loved the first two. But revisiting it a couple of years ago, I think I have developed a taste for the styles Dammers was aping.
At the time the move away from the ska sound disappointed me.
I am pleasantly surprised this made the list. Hopefully their more cohesive efforts show up later.
I enjoyed your review, my only surprise being you didn't know more of their music. I thought they were a British institution.
Thanks for all this. They were definitely a thing in the UK, but at the time I was in high school into Uni, so a) didn't have a lot of money to splash around and b) music was quite ghetto-ised (still is), and I didn't move in the kind of circles that were heavily into 2-tone. We listened to the radio, and to the albums we bought, and to the albums our friends bought. So, I knew of them, of course, but only heard the radio stuff.