Basket 0

👌 Your order qualifies for free shipping You are €85 away from free shipping.
No more products available for purchase

Leave a note for us...
Leave a gift message
Subtotal
View Basket
Continue to the checkout to apply any gift cards or discount codes and to review shipping and collection options.

Your basket is empty

This product is a Pre Order and is scheduled to be released 22nd November 2024

This product is available on preorder with a limited discounted price.

The Special AKA - In The Studio [40th Anniversary Edition] [Half-Speed Master]

€34,95

This product is available on pre order with a limited discounted price.

A 40th Anniversary Half-Speed Mastered Edition of The Special AKA 'In The Studio' album. This release has been liaised and approved by the band's founder and main songwriter Jerry Dammers.

Formed in Coventry in the mid-1970s, The Specials was the idea of musician Jerry Dammers, who brought together an eclectic array of individuals to fulfill his vision of a multi-racial band, fusing the energy of punk with the legendary but, at the time, often overlooked, sound of Jamaican ska. The band rose to prominence along with the 2Tone movement, 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. Released in 1984, 'In the Studio' was a brave mix of bold and challenging music, with a strong political, social and moral conscience. 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: a haunting, claustrophobic mix of lounge, soul, reggae, jazz and Arabic rhythms, with uncompromising subject matter. 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.

Edition Info

• Wide spine sleeve
• Insert inside and OBI.

Tracklisting

1. Bright Lights (2024 Remaster)
2. The Lonely Crowd (2024 Remaster) 3.
3. What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend (2024 Remaster)
4. Housebound (2024 Remaster)
5. Night On The Tiles (2024 Remaster)
6. Nelson Mandela (2024 Remaster)
7. War Crimes (The Crime Is The Same) (2024 Remaster)
8. Racist Friend (2024 Remaster)
9. Alcohol (2024 Remaster)
10. Break Down The Door (2024 Remaster)

Scheduled: 22 November 2024

Shipping & Delivery

Drift gladly ship all items Worldwide using Royal Mail Tracked® and DHL services. There is a shipping calculator available in the basket. Read More

Click & Collect

Available on all orders from Drift. Select the Click & Collect option during the checkout process. Read More.

UK Free Shipping

We offer free delivery on orders of £85 and over, sent within mainland UK. To qualify for free delivery, your order will be sent as one dispatch. Read More.

Global Shipping & Tax

If you are based outside the UK and EU, all prices will appear without tax at the checkout. Drift is IOSS registered and collects tax on all EU orders at point of purchase. Read More.

Earn [points_amount] when you buy this item.

[{"variant_id":"52525767819648" , "metafield_value":""}]
                 
"Weird, vivid nightmares on Jerry Dammers’ utterly compelling final album"
★★★★★
 
                   

Pre Order FAQ

When is this released?

The Special AKA - In The Studio [40th Anniversary Edition] [Half-Speed Master] is available for Pre Order now and has a scheduled release date of 22nd November 2024.

In the event of any delays to this date, we will try to keep this page updated in the '⚠ Updates' tab.

When will I get it?

We ship pre order items to arrive with you on or as close as possible to release day. We are limited naturally by when the stock arrives with us in Totnes, but we work hard to ship them in a timely fashion.

⚠ If you make a purchase from Drift that includes both Pre Order titles and in-stock titles, we will ship your entire order as one when all items are released. Read More.

What is the discount?

Every Pre Order product has a discount of between 10% and 15%. This is already factored into the price and will revert to full RRP during the week of release.