A tribute to Two Tone

As seems to be becoming a disturbingly regular occurrence with all C4's best programmes (see also: 'Six Feet Under', 'Peep Show'), 'Two Tone Britain' was hidden away in a darkened corner of the TV schedules by controllers too besotted with shows telling people how to sort their sorry sordid lives out.

Aired at 11pm on Monday night, the programme, narrated by Mark Lamarr, told the story of the movement which centred around the Coventry record label Two Tone in the late 70s and early 80s. As the label's founders, The Specials were naturally given most of the limelight (though the lack of interviews with either Jerry Dammers or Terry Hall detracted from its value somewhat), but attention was also paid to Madness, The Selecter and The Beat, amongst others.

Not being a massive fan of the music, I was primarily interested in the political agenda of the movement's major players, and glad that Two Tone's wider cultural and political significance was very much at the heart of the programme. At a time of desperate divisions between whites, blacks and Asians, Two Tone fostered a disregard skin colour and actively promoted interracial mixing and a collective and inclusive ethos.

Fulsome praise was lavished upon The Specials' crowning glory 'Ghost Town', and with good reason - surely there can be few singles which not only sound brilliant but can claim to document the sociopolitical circumstances of their production in quite such a profound way? A record as much of its time as it's possible to be, and I mean that in a good sense.

Which is why the section on Two Tone's legacy was rather disappointing. The Streets, yes - the influence is there both musically and ideologically. But The Ordinary Boys - a pretentious and substandard indie band that missed the Britpop boat by ten years? Fuck off.

Why not talk about The Dead 60s instead? Even then, though, whilst the ideals and ethos behind Two Tone might still be relevant today (as the bloke from Brummies The Beat claimed), it hardly makes sense for the new generation to give their songs titles like 'Riot Radio'. We're not living in the same climate as we were when The Specials wrote 'Ghost Town'. As Mike Skinner would have it, new music needs to push things forwards, as his very much has, rather than drift into empty revivalism for the sake of it and, ultimately, anachronism.

The other thing that struck me is that there seems to have been a real flight from politics in pop music since punk and Two Tone. The Specials, a band with a serious political agenda, had #1 hits. How often does that happen now? Indeed, it's perhaps worth wondering whether it could happen at all. Of course it's still perfectly possible to look at politics and music together - cultural forms are always at least in part a product of their sociopolitical context, though they can in turn affect that context - but nothing's as overt and in-your-face anymore, or at least not in the mainstream.