2TONE LIVES!

John Reed celebrates the bands who are keeping the faith – and the records which inspired them

From the scratchy, barely decipherable cry that opened The Specials’ Gangsters, 2 Tone ushered in the most vital pop music since punk. Much of its original audience were barely in their teens, (too much) too young to have been swept up by the Sex Pistols and The Clash, but smitten by the succession of classic black-and- white 45s that followed.

2 Tone acts had their own look (quickly christened – after Jamaican slang – ‘rude boy’, a rough amalgam of skinhead and mod via handme- down suits, tonik trousers and Fred Perry’s), and their own politics (a potent mix of anti- Thatcher polemics, social realism and multi-racial themes).

But above all, these acts had their own sound, albeit one rooted in a bygone age of classic Jamaican sounds – ska, yes, but also the later, less frantic strains of late-60s rocksteady and skinhead reggae from the dawn of the 70s. Older ears, especially those aligned with the contemporary reggae scene, were suspicious of these young bucks, who paid little or no lip service to the purists. Meanwhile, reissues and compilations of original recordings by the likes of Trojan swiftly capitalised on 2 Tone’s success, lapped up by a generation too young to own the original vinyl.

2 Tone was thirty years old last year but the celebrations, such as they were, seemed to be …

by John Reed
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