Music Review: The Specials: Encore

This album has been widely promoted as the first new music from the Specials since Ghost Town in 1981. It should be noted that it’s far from the original band lineup – the three original members involved in this album include two of the ones who went on to be in Fun Boy Three and the one who went on to be in General Public – but thirty-eight years is still a pretty notable gap in a band’s musical production.

The Specials - Encore

Let’s have a listen!

Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys

Nice jazz funk intro, leading into an upbeat chanty vocal. Awesome beat, and I love the spiky accents in the background instrumentation. There’s a great funky instrumental in the middle too.

BLM

Another upbeat track with a politically charged spoken vocal over the top. It’s a little repetitive, but that actually works quite well for the storytelling that the track is trying to do. There’s also a nice atmospheric lift at the end of each verse, and a good rock instrumental in the second half, after which the funk guitar really kicks in.

Vote For Me

Great atmosphere on this one, with jazzy piano over a reggae beat. It’s exactly my kind of thing – a real classic sound that somehow manages to sound reminiscent of better modern music as well. That melancholy trumpet solo is just immense.

The Lunatics

Reworking of classic Fun Boy Three track The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum. More great piano on the intro, leading into another reggae beat and another nice trumpet solo. Good stuff.

Breaking Point

There’s a bit of a carnival feel to the background music here – it’s all very dark and jaunty. It makes everything very atmospheric and sounds as though it should be on a film soundtrack.

Blam Blam Fever

Some interesting things going on with the beat here, and it’s a bit more optimistic-sounding than the previous tracks – musically if not lyrically! I really like the juxtaposition of the different vocals, which is very classic Specials.

10 Commandments

Interesting intro, with military-band-sounding drums leading into electronic spaceship sounds, and a female spoken vocal over the top delivering to-the-point feminist lyrics. There are some great synthy atmospheric instrumental breaks as well.

Embarrassed By You

Warm, gorgeous melody, and another pleasant reggae beat. Like the rest of the tracks on the album, the lyrics are very politically critical, which makes for an interesting juxtaposition with the music.

The Life And Times (Of A Man Called Depression)

More spoken word, with verses broken up by atmospheric instrumentals with hints of ’60s lounge. I find the lyrical content of this one very powerful as it’s a topic that means a lot to me.

We Sell Hope

Gorgeous atmospheric intro that moves into a slow reggae beat. Another lovely melody, and a less angry but still important message in the lyrics. Great album ender.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one – it’s hugely refreshing to hear such nicely put together songs in 2019, and it’s important that political records are still being made in an age when there are so many things in the world that need to be addressed. Welcome back, Specials – I’d take this over the current chart fodder any day.

Music Review: Now! That’s What I Call Music #3

It’s day 3 of the Now! reviews!

Now! #3 was released on 23rd July 1984, so hopefully its summer release means that there won’t be any Christmas music on this one.

July 1984
This is how the world looked in July 1984! I am sort of in this picture, because it’s a picture of my pregnant mum and her awesome ’80s coat.

Review time!

Now! That's What I Call Music #3

Track 1: Duran Duran – The Reflex

What was it I said yesterday?  Yeah.  Insert daily ‘I love Duran Duran’ statement here.  This one, as ever, is brilliant from start to finish – the backing vocals, the slightly mad lyrics, the chant-along bits on the chorus.  Love it.

Track 2: Nik Kershaw – I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me

I find this one a bit repetitive.  Not Nik Kershaw’s most exciting song.

Track 3: Sister Sledge – Thinking Of You

Not hugely keen on the disco stuff that was still kicking about in the ’80s anyway, and this one’s not even danceable in my opinion.

Track 4: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Locomotion

Love me some OMD.  This one’s a bit bouncier and dafter than their usual stuff, but that’s no bad thing.

Track 5: Ultravox – Dancing With Tears In My Eyes

Good song – that short guitar intro is great, as is the tune in general – but the nuclear-war-themed video is really depressing!

Track 6: Howard Jones – Pearl In The Shell

Nice upbeat intro, nice synth line, nice vocals, and I do love a sax solo!  Fairly standard Howard Jones.

Track 7: Blancmange – Don’t Tell Me

Great synthpop track – and I would expect no less from Blancmange.

Track 8: Phil Collins – Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)

Boring ballad.  Westlife and Mariah Carey did an even worse version of this in 1999, a pointless ’90s cover* if ever there was one.

Track 9: Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Two Tribes

Great party song!  Another nuclear-war-themed video that I find tough to watch despite its cleverness, because the Reagan and Gorbachev impersonators are really ‘uncanny valley’.  I guess we know what was on everyone’s minds in 1984.  This is the reason I decided to illustrate these posts with family photos rather than current events of the time.

Track 10: Grandmaster Flash and Grandmaster Melle Mel – White Lines (Don’t Do It)

A good head-nodder, with a great vocal, but not really my kind of thing.  I do quite like the fact that ostensibly anti-drug songs were a big thing in the ’80s (especially in comparison to the endless, boring and crass drug references in modern-day chart music), though I’m not sure how tongue-in-cheek this song’s message was.

Track 11: The Specials – Nelson Mandela

Another one that was used to good effect in Britain’s Got The Pop Factor.  This one always makes me think of the time in 1989 when my parents took me to the ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ march on Glasgow Green (I still have the badge).

Track 12: Womack & Womack – Love Wars

I wasn’t familiar with this one, but I like the atmosphere of the verse, before the chorus gets a bit haphazard.

Track 13: The Style Council – You’re The Best Thing

I find this one pretty dull, and the chorus annoys me for some reason.

Track 14: Bob Marley & The Wailers – One Love/People Get Ready

Classic sway-in-your-chair track.  Love this one!

Track 15: Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy

Wonderful synthpop – that stunning intro!  A favourite, and also a regular feature of Geth’s DJ setlists.

Track 16: Queen – I Want To Break Free

I’m not going to call this one a ‘guilty pleasure’, ’cause I don’t feel guilty about loving it at all.  Everything about it is awesome, from the epic intro to the Coronation Street homage in the video.

Track 17: Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time

Now this is a good ballad – nothing dreary about this one.  Beautiful tune, lovely instrumentals.

Track 18: Alison Moyet – Love Resurrection

This one reminds me of long car journeys as a kid with my dad’s Alison Moyet CD on the car stereo (I found out last Christmas that my brother vehemently hated that CD, but I really quite liked it).  I love Yazoo – as I mentioned yesterday, Only You is my all-time favourite song.  I’m not quite as keen on Moyet’s solo material, but it’s still good stuff.

Also, nowadays whenever I hear the lyric ‘show me one direction, I will not question again‘, I always think of One Direction.  Thanks, 21st century, for ruining things yet again.

Track 19: The Bluebells – Young At Heart

Another song (following Relax yesterday) that was re-released in 1993 and hence ended up on my Greatest Hits Of 1993 compilation!  Maybe it was 1993 that was the first true era of ’80s nostalgia.  I don’t blame people for wanting to get going with that as early as possible.

Track 20: Bananarama – Robert De Niro’s Waiting

I quite like this one, but then I’ve never come across a Bananarama track I didn’t like.  I remember knowing the title of this song for ages before I actually heard it, ’cause it’s mentioned in the blurb for Love In The First Degree on Now! #10 (we’ll get to that a week from today).

Track 21: Propaganda – Dr Mabuse

I wasn’t familiar with this one, but I like its dark, epic atmosphere and lyrics.

Track 22: Tina Turner – What’s Love Got To Do With It

Not my favourite Tina Turner song, but I do like the epic vocals on the chorus and the snatches of synth during the bridge.

Track 23: The Flying Pickets – When You’re Young And In Love

It’s no Only You, but still a nice a cappella cover.

Track 24: Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

A classic!  A perfect party tune, and then there’s the colourful video, which was one of those videos that really defined the ’80s, with the neon clothing and the Katharine Hamnett t-shirts (appropriately, I’m wearing her more recent Choose Love design today!)

Track 25: Thompson Twins – You Take Me Up

The harmonica instrumental annoys me, and I usually like harmonica.  I’m not a huge Thompson Twins fan anyway, but I’m really not keen on this one.

Track 26: The Weather Girls – It’s Raining Men

We’re at a wedding reception, and I’m on the dancefloor again!  You can’t go wrong with this fabulous party track.

There have been various pointless ’90s and ’00s covers of this one.  I’ll forgive them, as it’s always a banger no matter who covers it, but the original is far and away the best.

Track 27: Gary Glitter – Dance Me Up

Um, I’m quite surprised that I’m actually able to stream Gary Glitter on Spotify given what we know about him now, but I’m guessing he doesn’t actually get any of the streaming royalties.  Um, right?  I should probably look into that.

The song itself isn’t much to write home about, certainly not compared to his early ’70s glam rock stuff.

Track 28: The Art Company – Susanna

The Art Company, in contrast, haven’t put their stuff on Spotify, so I’ve done the uber-lazy ‘tribute version on the playlist’ for this review.

It’s a good song, actually.  Maybe I’d better give the actual Art Company version another listen sometime!

Track 29: Madness – One Better Day

Bit of a slow one for Madness!  Nice tune though.

Track 30: David Sylvian – Red Guitar

I was only previously familiar with David Sylvian’s stuff with Japan, not any of his solo tracks.  This one’s a bit dull, but the instrumentals are nice.

 

*In my terminology (and, I imagine, that of quite a few other people), a ‘pointless cover’ is one that doesn’t change enough things from the original track to make it worth recording a new version, and is hence just a shameless cash-in.  The ’90s were absolutely terrible for this, but it’s happened frequently in other decades as well.