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The Specials
The Specials, also known as The Special AKA, are an English 2 tone and ska revival band formed in 1977 in Coventry. After some early changes, the first stable lineup of the group consisted of Terry Hall and Neville Staple on vocals, Lynval Golding and Roddy Radiation on guitars, Horace Panter on bass, Jerry Dammers on keyboards, John Bradbury on drums, and Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez on horn. Their music combines the danceable rhythms of ska and rocksteady with the energy and attitude of punk. Lyrically, they present a "more focused and informed political and social stance". The band wore mod-style "1960s period rude boy outfits (pork pie hats, tonic and mohair suits and loafers)". In 1980, the song "Too Much Too Young", the lead track on their '' The Special AKA Live!'' EP, reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. In 1981, the recession-themed single "Ghost Town" also hit No. 1 in the UK. After seven consecutive UK top 10 singles between 1979 and 1981, main lea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed by Coventry City Council. Formerly part of Warwickshire until 1451, Coventry had a population of 345,328 at the 2021 census, making it the tenth largest city in England and the 12th largest in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest city in the West Midlands region, after Birmingham, from which it is separated by an area of green belt known as the Meriden Gap, and the third largest in the wider Midlands after Birmingham and Leicester. The city is part of a larger conurbation known as the Coventry and Bedworth Urban Area, which in 2021 had a population of 389,603. Coventry is east-south-east of Birmingham, south-west of Leicester, north of Warwick and north-west of London. Coventry is also the most central city in England, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Bradbury (drummer)
John "Brad" Bradbury (16 February 1953 – 28 December 2015) was an English drummer and record producer. He is best known for having been the drummer in the English ska group the Specials. Early life and education Bradbury was born in Coventry, where his father, Bert, was a painter and decorator for the council, and his mother, Joan, worked first for GEC (she was a shop steward) and then at Walsgrave Hospital, where she helped with care in the maternity ward. She was staunchly anti-racist and concerned with immigrants’ rights, and her views had a powerful effect on her son. He became fascinated by drumming as a child, and when he was eight his mum bought him a drum kit. According to his sister, Jill, "she then put egg boxes on the walls to stop the sound reaching the neighbours". Bradbury had three elder sisters, and it was they who took him to clubs and first introduced him to northern soul. He attended Binley Park school in Coventry, and went on to study fine art at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghost Town (The Specials Song)
"Ghost Town" is a song by the British two-tone band the Specials, released on 12 June 1981. The song spent three weeks at number one and 10 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. Background The tour for the group's '' More Specials'' album in autumn 1980 had been a fraught e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-selling Single (music), singles in the United Kingdom, based upon physical sales, paid-for downloads and music streaming, streaming. The Official Chart, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and MTV (Official UK Top 40), is the UK music industry's recognised official measure of singles and albums popularity because it is the most comprehensive research panel of its kind, today surveying over 15,000 retailers and digital services daily, capturing 99.9% of all singles consumed in Britain across the week, and over 98% of albums. To be eligible for the chart, a Single (music), single is currently defined by the Official Charts Company (OCC) as either a 'single bundle' having no more than four tracks and not lasting longer than 25 minutes or one digital audio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extended Play
An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record.Official Charts Company , access-date=March 21, 2017 Contemporary EPs generally contain four or five tracks, and are considered "less expensive and time-consuming" for an artist to produce than an album. An EP originally referred to specific types of other than 78 [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Special AKA Live!
''Too Much Too Young - The Special A.K.A. Live!'' is a live EP by The Specials with Rico Rodriguez, released on 11 January 1980. On the original release, the front cover credited the performers as ''The Special A.K.A. featuring Rico'', while the back cover mentions and the labels credited only The Specials. Renowned for their live shows, The Specials released a five-track live EP in January 1980 as the third single by the band. The EP featured "Too Much Too Young" (originally recorded on the album ''The Specials'') with " Guns of Navarone" recorded live in London; and "Skinhead Symphony" - a medley of "Long Shot Kick De Bucket", " The Liquidator" and " Skinhead Moonstomp" - which was recorded at Tiffany's in Coventry. Lead track "Too Much Too Young" was based on the 1969 song "Birth Control" by Lloyd Charmers. Contrary to what is sometimes stated, "Too Much Too Young" was not banned by the BBC due to mentions of contraception in the lyrics. However, when the song's promotional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Gui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mohair
Mohair (pronounced ) is a fabric or yarn made from the hair of the Angora goat. (This should not be confused with Angora wool, which is made from the fur of the Angora rabbit.) Both durable and resilient, mohair is notable for its high luster and sheen, and is often used in fiber blends to add these qualities to a textile. Mohair takes dye exceptionally well. It feels warm in winter as it has excellent insulating properties, while its moisture-wicking properties allow it to remain cool in summer. It is durable, naturally elastic, flame-resistant and crease-resistant. It is considered a luxury fiber, like cashmere, angora, and silk, and can be more expensive than most sheep's wool. Mohair is composed mostly of keratin, a protein found in the hair, wool, horns and skin of all mammals, but mohair's special properties are unique to the Angora goat. While it has scales like wool, the scales are not fully developed, merely indicated. Thus, mohair does not feel the same way common or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pork Pie Hat
A pork pie hat is one of several different styles of hat that have been popular since the mid-19th century. It features a flat crown that resembles a traditional pork pie. Buster Keaton and the 1920s The pork pie began to appear in Britain as a man's hat not long after the turn of the century in the fashion style of the '' man-about-town''. Silent film actor Buster Keaton converted fedoras into straw boater-like felt pork pies by stiffening their brims with a dried sugar-water solution. This kind of pork pie had a very flat top and similar short flat brim. 1930s and 1940s The heyday of the pork pie hat occurred during the Great Depression, following the straw boater era that peaked in the Roaring Twenties. In this incarnation, the pork pie regained its snap brim and increased slightly in height. Its dished crown became known among milliners as "telescopic crowns" or "tight telescopes" because when worn the top could be made to pop up slightly. Furthermore, as stated in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rude Boy
Rude boy, rudeboy, rudie, rudi, and rudy are slang terms that originated in 1960s Jamaican street culture, and that are still used today. In the late 1970s, there was a revival in England of the terms ''rude boy'' and ''rude girl'', among other variations, being used to describe fans of two-tone ska. The use of these terms moved into the more contemporary ska punk movement as well. In the UK, the terms rude boy and rude girl are used in a way similar to gangsta, yardie or badman. Jamaica The term ''rude boy'', and the rude boy subculture, arose from the poorer sections of Kingston, Jamaica, and was associated with violent discontented youths. Along with ska and rocksteady music, many rude boys favored sharp suits, thin ties, and pork pie or Trilby hats, showing an influence of the fashions of US jazz musicians and soul music artists. Well-known cowboy and gangster/outlaw films from that period were also influential factors in shaping the rude boy image, as scholars like R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mod (subculture)
Mod, from the word modernist, is a subculture that began in London and spread throughout Great Britain and elsewhere, eventually influencing fashions and trends in other countries, and continues today on a smaller scale. Focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small group of stylish London-based young men in the late 1950s who were termed ''modernists'' because they listened to modern jazz. Elements of the mod subculture include fashion (often tailor-made suits); music (including soul, rhythm and blues, ska and mainly jazz) and motor scooters (usually Lambretta or Vespa). In the mid-1960s, the subculture listened to power pop rock groups with mod following, such as the Who and Small Faces, after the peak Mod era. The original mod scene was associated with amphetamine-fuelled all-night jazz dancing at clubs. During the early to mid-1960s, as mod grew and spread throughout the UK, certain elements of the mod scene became engaged in well-publicised cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
