Specials In Black & White!

SXSW 2008: Video Exclusive!

Features Disc of the day

10:30 AM GMT 03/04/2008

THE BEST OF THE SPECIALS CD and bonus DVD – featuring all the hits and videos from the band’s first hit single Gangsters to the Special AKA’s landmark Free Nelson Mandela – is out now on Chrysalis. We urge you all to go out and buy it, but, to put you in the mood, here are some shoddier versions of Specials videos we found online.

1. Gangsters

Ah, all that youthful brio and energy channeled into pop genius. Will we ever see its like again?

2. A Message To You Rudy

And they were all so smartly dressed… foulades and braces might come back as ‘a look’.

3. Too Much Too Young

The live band at their peak in Coventry, 1979, the kids is going mental.

4. Monkey Man

Live sweat in Japan, 1980

5. Rat Race

Social comment pop video. Take heed, Mr Suit-and-tie!

6. Do Nothing

Ski jumpers and golfing trousers might be the best youth fashion look of all time.

7. Pinkpop & The Police Picnic, 1981

Two of the last gigs, and disconsolate interview with Terry. Bonus: some TV pop awards ceremony none of us can remember. Sue Lawley’s involved. Any ideas?

8. Ghost Town

Even if a band could write an equivalant song about Britain in 2008, would anyone listen?

9. What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend

Let’s represent In The Studio with this deeply strange video and equally odd Jerry vocal. Jazzdance!

10. Free Nelson Mandela

The danger with songs as once-ubiquitous as this is that they become wallpaper. But listen to it all again – no, listen! – and marvel.

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 10:30 AM GMT 03/04/2008

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Click here for House Rules

I was only 13 when the Specials peaked, but Ghost Town I remember, what a brilliant song even without the social comment, however your right, no one would listen now.

Posted by Kevin Grant at 12:45 PM GMT 18/04/2008 Report Abuse

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