Terry Hall and The Specials were more than just music and aesthetics, the band was a symbiosis of youth culture, protest and a living counter-model to Thatcher's neoliberal and divided Britain.
Last Sunday (18 December 2023), the algorithm behind Google News, driven by its almost uncanny knowledge of what might ‘interest’ me, threw it in my face: Terry Hall had died completely unexpectedly at the age of 63 after a short and serious illness. He was one of the few people I would have loved to meet in person during his lifetime, even though I'm not generally susceptible to celebrity culture. The slim man at the microphone with the always slightly sad-looking face had left us.
