Special AKA’s In The Studio

2 Tone Records/Chrysalis Catalogue will release a 40th Anniversary Half-Speed Mastered Edition of Special AKA’s In The Studio album on 22 November.  This release has been liaised and approved by the band’s founder and main songwriter Jerry Dammers.

Dammers formed The Specials in Coventry in the mid-1970s. With himself on keyboards, he brought together an eclectic array of individuals to fulfill his vision of a multi-racial band, fusing the energy of punk – first with reggae – then with the legendary, but at the time overlooked, sound of uptempo Jamaican ska.

The band rose to prominence on Dammers’ 2 Tone Records label, which included two No. 1 singles, Too Much Too Young and 1981’s Ghost Town, which theme still resonates today, before Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple left to form the Fun Boy Three and Roddy Byers left to tour with his band the Tearjerkers.

The remaining members, Dammers, Bradbury and Panter, recruited guitarist John Shipley from The Swinging Cats, ex-Bodysnatcher Rhoda Dakar and lead vocalist Stan Campbell, reverting the original band name of The Special AKA and set to work on a new album.

In The Studio

Released in 1984, In the Studio was a mix of bold and challenging music, a collision of Arabic rhythms, jazz, lounge, reggae and soul, with off-kilter chord sequences and key changes, soundtracking arguably The Specials’ most political, social and moral album which reflected the bleakness of the times, both at home, and internationally.

The album made it into the Top 40, and while it might not have been a huge commercial success, it was, and still is, an astonishingly unique work. It featured two classic singles: the joyous, yet serious rallying anthem for the then imprisoned South African ANC leader, Free Nelson Mandela, and What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend. As time has gone by, the status of In The Studio has grown, and today it is rightly viewed as a genuine lost classic.

Like the previous two Specials 40th Anniversary vinyl editions, this has been newly remastered and cut at half-speed by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, London.

In The Studio [2024 Half-Speed Master] Tracklisting

LP1
Side A
Bright Lights
The Lonely Crowd
Side B
What I Like Most About You Is your Girlfriend
Housebound
Night On The Tiles

LP2
Side A
Nelson Mandela
War Crimes (The Crime Is Still The Same)
Side B
Racist Friend
Alcohol
Break Down The Door

Available in wide spine sleeve, 2LP 180g Black Vinyl cut at 45rpm with insert inside and OBI. Pre-order here

Read More: Essential Guide – The Best Of 2 Tone