This place being a beacon of originality and all that, it’s difficult to tackle ‘Ghost Town’ without offering trite observations about unfortunate serendipitous events that have been reeled out a million times before. Ahem. No, we wouldn’t want to do anything like that. No. Now, wasn’t it strange how all those urban riots raged while this was at No.1? It’s as if Dammers, Hall and the gang were seers; arch-chroniclers of the rough-end of the street, so in touch with the pulse their fingers kept bobbing up and down.
OK, let’s just say that this queasy classic is powerful and insidious enough, even without the confluence of circumstance that makes it a vivid ‘Sign ‘O’ The Times’. A lucky break, if we’re being grim.
The best part of 30 years removed from all that, Junior just liked the record – although she drew the rather alarming conclusion that the crazed, ghoulish “la-la-la”s were being sung by Lykke Li. Still, with a whole new set of riots surely only a further drop in house prices away, there’s an opening for Lykke to reissue ‘I’m Good, I’m Gone’ and provide a timely anthem for our skidaddle out of the chaos.
People getting angry:
Jukebox Junior 
Bands were much less attractive in the old days.
Quite. Now they’re all handsome like Arctic Monkeys and The Enemy.
I’ve just noticed the CD collection in the banner really IS in alphabetical order.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
So, is the Specials a sign that 1981 is getting better? Can we really expect the remainder of the songs to be BETTER than Ghost Town?
Yeeeeees. Maaaayyyyybeeee.
You can probably guess the rest.