Description
Produced during the band’s Special Beat Service period, this terrific original program captures The Beat at the moment when the Birmingham group was making its biggest push into America. Dave Wakeling, Ranking Roger, Andy Cox, David Steele, Everett Morton, Saxa, Wesley Magoogan and Dave “Blockhead” Wright are given individual biographies alongside photographs by Pennie Smith, Adrian Boot, Steve Rapport and others, with additional spreads chronicling the band’s rise from Birmingham clubs to international touring. The discography runs from “Tears of a Clown” and “Ranking Full Stop” through I Just Can’t Stop It, Wha’ppen?, “Save It for Later,” “Jeanette,” and the 1982 Special Beat Service album—the band’s third and final studio record. In America, where another group already owned the name Beat, they became The English Beat, and Special Beat Service helped broaden their U.S. audience through songs including “Save It for Later” and “I Confess.”
Beyond the music, this is a wonderful piece of early-’80s graphic design and band ephemera. The entire program plays on the Special Beat Service concept: airline-style graphics, stark gray fields, red registration marks and a cover warning, “AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY / NOT TO BE TAKEN INTO THE AIR.” There’s also a full-page pitch for The Beat Club, the band’s fan club, promising newsletters, photographs, badges, competitions and candid snapshots of the group. It catches The Beat just before the end: their fusion of ska, reggae, punk, pop and politics had carried them from the 2 Tone movement into the American new-wave audience, but the original group would break up in 1983, with Wakeling and Ranking Roger going on to General Public and Cox and Steele to Fine Young Cannibals.
If Special Beat Service is already sitting in your record collection, this is what belongs beside it—the original 1982 program that turns the album into a piece of history.
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