The four best albums of the english ska revival (the "second wave") at the end of the seventies, when I was a kid. That's almost a quarter of a century I listen regularly to these marvels. I will never get tired of them. They are still so damn modern. Raw energy and fun at each upbeat. It's not even nostalgia. They are a part of me.

The Specials:	"Specials"	(1979)
Madness:	"One Step Beyond"	(1979)
The Beat:	"I Just Can't Stop It"	(1980)
The Selecter:	"Too Much Pressure"	(1980)

Be careful with the CD versions though. Recording companies are masters of deception. Probably to make more money, they released some of these albums as CDs without all the original songs! Which gave them the occasion to relase much later a "re-masterized" complete stuff. So people have to buy it twice. The re-issue of the Beat (the "English Beat" in the US) album in 1999 lacks two songs: "Tears of a Clown" and "Ranking Full Stop". The CD version of the Specials album lacks "Gangsters", the best song! There was a very weird recent CD of the Selecter with the same name, "Too Much Pressure", but different songs, mainly live and bad quality. Just imagine printing a novel without a few chapters. What a profound disrespect for artists and people who like them. So don't feel too bad when downloading songs from P2P networks. You're just getting back what recording companies stole from you.

Guess why this site is black and white. Two-Tone forever!