In the late ’70s, as punk was slowly spreading from the British Isles to the United States, a gang of seven Coventry youths quietly set the Kingdom ablaze with their volatile mix of stolen Jamaican rhythms, mod styling, and working-class consciousness. The Clash only scored one British Top 10 hit—the Specials had eight. Popular memory favors the UK’s more famous musical exports, but for a point in time the Specials were the sound of young Britain. Their epochal “Ghost Town,” arguably as much about inner-band tensions as British unemployment, soared up the charts in 1981. Ska’s ebbing popularity has perhaps kneecapped the band in modern sentiment, but the Specials created pop music for a social milieu incredibly similar to 2016. At a time when the National Front encroached on British politics, plastering seven black and white men on your record cover made a statement. MAC POGUE