Meanwhile the founding by their chief songwriter, Jerry Dammers, of the 2 Tone Record label fermented the sound into a bona fide youth movement, snappily suited and multiracial. Formed in 1977, the group became pioneers of a cross-cultural sound that fused the languor of reggae music with the raw anger of punk. ![]() The unrest contained within the song mirrored the band's own struggles. Meanwhile, to compound the disquiet, the video offered a road trip through post-apocalyptically empty London streets. No job to be found in this country," Neville Staple and Terry Hall memorably sang to a backdrop of strident brass, haunted-house organ and loping bass, the groove's eerie Middle Eastern flavour as unsettling as the lyrics. "Government leaving the youth on the shelf. It was an elegiac portrait of the band's Coventry home town, but its message resonated far beyond the Midlands, chiming with a country feeling the bite of Thatcherite cuts and galvanised into unrest by April's Brixton riots. On 11 July 1981, the Specials' "Ghost Town" hit the top of the charts, where it stayed for three weeks – the day before it reached No 1, rioting erupted across Britain. Thirty years ago, however, there was one anthem that defined that summer of discontent. ![]() The political and economic parallels between Britain in 20 may be self-evident, but musical reactions to today's tempestuous times are conspicuous by their scarcity.
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