Artist · chart history · #228 in alternative artist polls · #469 in indie & aaa artist polls
The Specials
Band Coventry United Kingdom Formed 1977 ska band
The Specials formed in 1977 in Coventry, United Kingdom. The Specials has 129 chart appearances on 80 radio countdowns from 20 stations on RockLists, spanning 1979–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “A Message To You Rudy”, which appears on 39 lists with a best position of #54. The station that charted The Specials most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 26 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1981.
The Specials came out of Coventry in 1977 with a sound that shouldn't have worked and an attitude that made sure it did: the loping, danceable pulse of ska and rocksteady run at punk's pace and temperature. The first settled lineup was a mob of 9: singers Terry Hall and Neville Staple, keyboard man Jerry Dammers, guitarists Lynval Golding and Roddy Radiation, bassist Horace Panter, drummer John Bradbury, and a horn section of Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez. They dressed the part too, in pork pie hats, tonic and mohair suits and loafers, the full '60s rude boy kit.
The debut album, Specials, landed in 1979 and it's a riot of sharp edges. "A Message to You Rudy" sways with a lazy, horn-soaked swagger, and "Concrete Jungle" and "Too Hot" twitch with street-corner nerves, while the single "Gangsters" charges out of the gate like a getaway car. Beneath the skanking there was politics and plenty of social bite, and the band made you dance to it whether you were listening or not. In 1980 their live EP, led by "Too Much Too Young", went all the way to number one in Britain.
Then, in 1981, came "Ghost Town", a creeping, eerie portrait of recession-hit Britain that also hit number one and still sounds like a city holding its breath. By then they had strung together 7 straight UK top 10 singles, and the band was coming apart. Hall, Staple and Golding walked out to form Fun Boy Three, and a revised lineup carried on under an alternate name the band had used before, the Special A.K.A., putting out new music until 1984, including the top 10 single "Free Nelson Mandela". After that, the founder shut the whole thing down.
It didn't stay shut. The Specials came back together in 1993 and carried on in various lineups, never with Dammers, with Guilty 'Til Proved Innocent! and "It's You" and "Rat Race" in 1998, right up until Terry Hall died in December 2022. But it's the first flush, those 3 hot years around the turn of the '80s, that rock radio's countdowns keep spinning.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Specials on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Message To You Rudy | 39 | #54 | – | – | |
| 2 | Ghost Town | 34 | #21 | – | 1981 | |
| 3 | Concrete Jungle | 18 | #163 | – | – | |
| 4 | Too Much Too Young | 6 | #36 | – | – | |
| 5 | Gangsters | 5 | #7 | – | – | |
| 6 | Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think) | 3 | #217 | – | – | |
| 7 | Too Hot | 2 | #539 | – | – | |
| 8 | Rudi, A Message to You | 2 | #258 | – | – | |
| 9 | Enjoy Yourself | 2 | #265 | – | – | |
| 10 | You're Wondering Now | 2 | #543 | – | – | |
| 11 | It's You | 3 | #73 | – | 1998 | |
| 12 | A Litle Bit Me, A Little Bit You | 1 | #1059 | – | – | |
| 13 | Free Nelson Mandela | 1 | #527 | – | – | |
| 14 | Rat Race | 2 | #1308 | – | – | |
| 15 | Gangsters (Specials, 1979) 2 Tone | 1 | #32 | – | – | |
| 16 | Ghost town 93 | 1 | #624 | – | – | |
| 17 | Little Bitch | 1 | #737 | – | – | |
| 18 | Monkey Man | 2 | #720 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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