More Specials

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The Specials

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More Specials is an October 1980 (see 1980 in music) album from the ska band The Specials. The album was the band's second, after their self-titled debut, and expanded the group's 2 tone sound to include lounge music and other influences. It includes collaborations with The Go-Go's, Rhoda Dakar from The Bodysnatchers and Lee Jay Thompson from Madness. The lyrics, like the previous album, were often intensely political.

On the charts, the album hit the Top Five in the UK, where "Rat Race", "Stereotype" and "Do Nothing" hit the Top Ten. "Rat Race" hit #89 on Billboard Music Chart's (US) Club Play Singles chart, while the album as a whole hit #98 on Billboards Pop Albums chart.

More Specials was a hit in the two-tone movement, a late-1970s revival of Jamaican ska from the 1960s. Along with bands like the Bodysnatchers and Madness, The Specials would go on to be a leader in this revival, and later heroes for two further ska-punk revivals on the opposite side of the Atlantic: the late 1980s Southern California scene (NOFX, Operation Ivy) and the mid-1990s "third wave of ska" (Sublime, No Doubt) which popularised the mixture in the US.