Nice selection of tracks from original Ska recordings here at Butterboy (they were inspired by the recent drama on BBC tv drama This Town which didn’t impress me much but each to their own). It meant they posted this 200 track collection which if you don’t have any is well worth it and if you do have some try it too! (I should note they have posted link to the new TVseries and if you are interested then by all means following the links to Butterboy)
This is Ska - Full BBC Documentary (1964)
https://youtu.be/usbF108onhU?si=5I4Mh0THwnMXhQLZ
K SAYS : The 2 Tone genre, which began in the late 1970s in the Coventry area of UK, was a fusion of Jamaican ska rhythms and melodies with punk rock's more aggressive guitar chords and lyrics. Compared to 1960s ska, 2 Tone music had faster tempos, fuller instrumentation, and a harder edge. The genre was named after 2 Tone Records, a record label founded by Jerry Dammers of the Specials. In many cases, the reworking of classic ska songs turned the originals into hits again in the United Kingdom.
The Specials recorded "A Message to You Rudy" in 1979. The 2 Tone movement promoted racial unity at a time when racial tensions were high in England. There were many Specials songs that raised awareness of the issues of racism, fighting and friendship. Riots in English cities were a feature during the summer of 1981 that the Specials song "Ghost Town" became a smash hit.
"Ghost Town" is a song by the British 2 tone band the Specials, released on 12 June 1981. The song spent three weeks at number one and 11 weeks in total in the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart.
Evoking themes of urban decay, deindustrialisation, unemployment and violence in inner cities, the song is remembered for being a hit at the same time as riots were occurring in British cities. Internal tensions within the band were also coming to a head when the single was being recorded, resulting in the song being the last single recorded by the original seven members of the group before splitting up. However, the song was hailed by the contemporary UK music press as a major piece of popular social commentary, and all three of the major UK music magazines of the time awarded "Ghost Town" the accolade of "Single of the Year" for 1981. It was the 12th-best-selling single in the UK in 1981.
The tour for the group's More Specials album in late 1980 had been a fraught experience: already tired from a long touring schedule and with several band members at odds with keyboardist and band leader Jerry Dammers over his decision to incorporate "muzak" keyboard sounds on the album, several of the gigs descended into audience violence. As they travelled, the band witnessed sights that reflected the depressed mood of a country gripped by recession. In 2002, Dammers told The Guardian: "You travelled from town to town and what was happening was terrible. In Liverpool, all the shops were shuttered up, everything was closing down ... We could actually see it by touring around. You could see that frustration and anger in the audience. In Glasgow, there were these little old ladies on the streets selling all their household goods, their cups and saucers. It was unbelievable. It was clear that something was very, very wrong."
In an interview in 2011, Dammers explained how witnessing this event inspired his composition:
The overall sense I wanted to convey was impending doom. There were weird, diminished chords: certain members of the band resented the song and wanted the simple chords they were used to playing on the first album. It's hard to explain how powerful it sounded. We had almost been written off and then "Ghost Town" came out of the blue.
The song's sparse lyric alludes to urban decay, unemployment and violence in inner cities. Jo-Ann Greene of Allmusic notes the lyric "only brush[es] on the causes for this apocalyptic vision - the closed down clubs, the numerous fights on the dancefloor, the spiraling unemployment, the anger building to explosive levels. But so embedded were these in the British psyche, that Dammers needed only a minimum of words to paint his picture." The club referred to in the song was the Locarno (run by the Mecca Leisure Group and later renamed Tiffany's), a regular haunt of Neville Staple and Lynval Golding, and which is also named as the club in "Friday Night, Saturday Morning", one of the songs on the B-side. The building that housed the club is now Coventry Central Library.
Contemporaneous reviews identified the song's impact as an "instant musical editorial" on recent events (the 1981 England riots). By the end of the year the song had won over the critics to be named "Single of the Year" in Melody Maker, NME and Sounds, the UK's top three weekly music magazines at the time. AllMusic's retrospective review of the original single argued that the song was the band's "crowning achievement".
The summer of 1981 saw riots in over 35 locations around the UK. In response to the linking of the song to these events, singer Terry Hall said, "When we recorded 'Ghost Town', we were talking about [1980]'s riots in Bristol and Brixton. The fact that it became popular when it did was just a weird coincidence."
In the 1990s the song was featured in an episode of the sitcom Father Ted.
The song was featured in the 2000 Guy Ritchie film Snatch, the 2004 Edgar Wright film Shaun of the Dead, and the 2022 Netflix animated film Wendell & Wild.
The song experienced a thematic resurgence on music streaming platforms in 2020, after lockdown orders were placed following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In December 2021, a commemorative plaque was affixed to the house where the former Woodbine Street recording studio was located. The plaque mentions "Ghost Town" was recorded there.
In 2022, it was included in the list "The story of NME in 70 (mostly) seminal songs" at number 19, for "Lacing ska and reggae with the amphetamine edge of new wave". Mark Beaumont praised the song and its "brooding evocation of Thatcher’s wasteland Britain".
Most of the 2 Tone bands had multiracial lineups, such as the Beat (known as the English Beat in North America and Australia), the Specials, and the Selecter. Although only on the 2 Tone label for one single, Madness was one of the most effective bands at bringing the 2 Tone genre into the mainstream. Madness recorded "One Step Beyond". The music of this era resonated with white working-class youth and West Indian immigrants who experienced the struggles addressed in the lyrics.
This fully packed 200 track, 8CD set contains a number of rare and extremely hard to find tracks, with many featured in their original 7" mono 45 single form. Only the original studio mixes are included. No later remixes, 'stereo enhanced' or live bootleg versions here!
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