The Specials' 10 best songs ever, ranked

19 January 2026, 12:51 | Updated: 29 January 2026, 16:52

By Mayer Nissim

The Specials (and their spinoffs) were maybe the greatest band of the ska revival.

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The end of the 1970s saw a two tone/ska revival spearheaded by a number of classic bands, with The Specials up there in the discussion a the very best.

The Selecter, The Beat, Bad Manners and of course Madness are certainly in the running, but with their run of seven top 10 singles between 1979 and 1981 (and an afterlife as The Special AKA), Terry Hall and co will always have a well, special place in British pop history.

We're focusing mainly on that original run with the classic lineup. So not just Terry Hall, Jerry Dammers and Neville Staple, but also the dubby ska excellence of Lynval Golding, Horace Panter, Roddy Radiation, John Bradbury – plus regular guests Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez.

Though we've also included the standouts from the mid-1980s, after Hall/Staple/Golding had gone off to form Fun Boy Three and Dammers remade The Special AKA in his own image.

Dammers would never rejoin group after his spinoff called it a day in 1984, while The Specials enjoyed several reunions with varying lineups until Hall tragically died in 2022 at the age of 63 after a brief illness.

Below we celebrate the work of The Specials with a round up of their ten greatest songs, ranked all the way to their very best.

Racist Friend

The Specials - Racist Friend (Official Music Video)

After Terry Hall (and Neville Staple and Lynval Golding) left The Specials to form Fun Boy Three, you'd have expected the group to completely disintegrate.
Instead, Jerry Dammers reconstituted the group as The Special AKA (a name the group had sometimes used) for a final hurrah with the In The Studio album.
Among its highlights was the hard-hitting 'Racist Friend', calling on people to cut off ties with the racist people in their lives, even if it's their sister/brother/cousin/uncle/lover.
Do Nothing

The Specials - Do Nothing (Live at BBC's Top Of The Pops 1980) [HD Remaster]

The second single from second album More Specials was released as a double-A-side with an incredibly quirky cover of Bob Dylan's 'Maggie's Farm' that almost inched its way on to this list just for sheer strangeness.
But we've given the nod to this Golding/Dammers original that stormed to number 4, with its lush vibe helped along by Dammers' string synth credited as Ice Rink String Sounds.
And the expansion of the band's sound also saw an expansion of their wardrobes, with some very fetching Christmas jumpers worn for their TOTP appearance.
(Free) Nelson Mandela

The Specials - Nelson Mandela (Official Music Video) [HD Remaster]

The pick of the post-Hall/Staple/Golding Special AKA era is 'Nelson Mandela' (or, 'Free Nelson Mandela', depending on the mix).
Originally recorded and released in 1984, it was produced by Elvis Costello and featured an all-star cast including the Afrodiziak trio heard on The Jam's 'Beat Surrender'.
"I knew very little about Mandela until I went to an anti-apartheid concert in London in 1983, which gave me the idea for 'Nelson Mandela'," Dammers later revealed to Radio Times.
"I never knew how much impact the song would have: it was a hit around the world, and it got back into South Africa and was played at sporting events and ANC rallies. It became an anthem."
Stereotype

The Specials - Stereotypes/Stereotype Pt. 2 (2015 Remaster)

With shades of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores, 1980 single 'Stereotype' showed just how adept The Specials were at mashing up all sorts of sound into a glorious ska symphony.
That was doubly true on the More Specials version of the song, which unfolds into Neville Staple's two-part monster dub epic.
Given how expansive the sound of even the original version is, getting to number 6 in the charts was a serious achievement.
The Boiler

THE BOILER - The Special AKA featuring Rhoda Dakar - Two Tone Records.

One of the most upsetting, hard-hitting and brutal songs in the history of popular music.
'The Boiler' originated with the seven-piece all-female ska band The Bodysnatchers, but after that band fell apart, Rhoda Dakar worked with Jerry Dammers on the song which was eventually released under the banner of Rhoda Dakar with the Special AKA.
All the trigger warnings apply, as Rhoda Dakar's harrowing first person spoken word tale of a woman who is assaulted and raped, with her screams in the last portion of the song ringing out for what feels like eternity, contrasting with the too-bouncy energy of the instrumental.
Gangsters

The Specials - Gangsters (Official Music Video) [HD]

The Specials debut single from 1979 was credited to Jerry Dammers but leant heavily on Prince Buster's first wave stay classic 'Al Capone' reworked to tell the true story of when the band were stitched up for the damage done to a hotel when they were on tour with The Clash.
Terry Hall double tracked two contrasting vocals of this bass-heavy monster, which was released as a shared single The Special A.K.A Gangsters vs. The Selecter, and stormed its way to number six in the UK singles charts.
Too Much Too Young

The Specials - Too Much Too Young (Live) [HD Remaster]

Another Dammers reworking of an existing ska hit, 'Too Much Too Young' riffed on Lloyd Charmer's 'Birth Control' and was a standout from the band's self-titled debut album.
It also led the live Too Much Too Young (EP), which featured the Cuban-born first waver trombonist Rico Rodriguez and is even more storming than the original version.
Truthfully the lyrics haven't aged all that well, but you can't deny the hooks and the EP became the band's first number one record in the UK.
A Message to You Rudy

The Specials - A Message To You Rudy (Official Music Video)

A cover of Dandy Livingstone's 1967 rocksteady classic, which did okay on its original release, popping up on the R&B singles charts over at Record Mirror.
But when The Specials got hold of it, it was a much bigger deal. Produced (like the rest of The Specials) by Elvis Costello, it had guest brass from Rico Rodriguez and trumpeter Dick Cuthell that parped the song right into the hearts of the nation, giving them another top ten hit.
Rat Race

The Specials - Rat Race (Official Music Video)

A standalone released between their two studio albums and another top five hit, 'Rat Race' makes an argument for being one of their best singles.
It's got the righteous anger on behalf of the kids sucked up into dead end jobs while the more privileged kids doss around in college knowing they'll walk into some plum job down the line, but leavened by the band's catchiest vocal melody.
Ghost Town

The Specials - Ghost Town [Official HD Remastered Video]

"You travelled from town to town and what was happening was terrible," Jerry Dammers told The Guardian of his masterpiece in 2002.
"In Liverpool, all the shops were shuttered up, everything was closing down ... We could actually see it by touring around. You could see that frustration and anger in the audience."
After hearing Victor Romero Evans' 'At the Club', he tracked down producer John Collins and convinced him to work his magic on the song.
It was the final single released by the original classic lineup of The Specials (and the last new material featuring Terry Hall till 2019's Encore) and their crowning glory.
It went to number one, scooped up a load of end-of-year awards and is a Platinum selling single, but it heralded the end of group when Hall, Staple and Golding told the rest of the band they were leaving while they were at Top of the Pops performing the track.