‘Forty years on, nothing’s changed’: Fun Boy Three on The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum
‘Terry Hall was writing about nuclear war and Ronald Reagan, then the US president, the idea being that the world was being run by lunatics’
September 2023
The reader interview
Tricky: ‘I was less nervous going to prison than I was getting on stage’
As his debut Maxinquaye gets reissued, the Bristolian music legend answers your questions on Beyoncé, Bob Marley and annoying Gary Oldman with a Twix
June 2023
Name and shame
The songs of the Specials’ Terry Hall taught me about vulnerability – and that’s why I will always miss him
Emma Forrest
The singer showed me that burning bridges can be extraordinarily beautiful, from any vantage point – which is a good note on which to end my Name and Shame series
The Specials and Fun Boy Three singer has died aged 63. We look back on the life of 2 Tone’s finest
Terry Hall was the self-assured eye of the Specials storm
Alexis Petridis
As the pioneering 2 Tone band’s lead singer, Hall’s impassive style made him a star – and helped him weather the vicissitudes of fame, the changing charts and British decline
Terry Hall: lead singer of the Specials dies aged 63
Having survived a tough childhood in Coventry, Hall became one of pop’s defining voices at the turn of the 80s, chronicling British decline and disfranchised youth with the 2 Tone band
September 2021
The Specials: Protest Songs 1924-2012 review – genre-hopping calls to action
This selection of covers runs the gamut from Bob Marley to Frank Zappa and proves an excellent stop gap for the perennial activists
April 2019
The Specials review – veteran fighters strike a chord with young recruits
The highly influential band bring their 40-year campaign against injustice to a new generation of music fans
February 2019
You ask the questions
The Specials: ‘Respect people. Be kind to people. What else have we got?’
On the eve of their first album in four decades, 2 Tone’s finest talk to Miranda Sawyer and, further down, answer questions from readers and famous fans
March 2009
Soundtrack of my life
Soundtrack of my life: Terry Hall
As the Specials return, the singer tells Will Hodgkinson about classic threads, dreads and odd Sunday dinners
February 2009
The Specials: ’It’s something I wanted again in my life’
They broke up in a Top of the Pops dressing room in 1981, but now the Specials are back. In their first post-reformation interview, they tell Alexis Petridis how good it feels
