Music Video: The Specials - Ghost Town CSP

​BACKGROUND AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

1.) The writer links the song to cinematic soundtracks and music hall tradition because of its influence over those who consumed it.

2.) 2-tone merged the subcultures of reggae and new wave music in the 1970’s.

3.) The idea of “Thatcherism” created racial ideals of there being too many people of colour within the UK. The band The Specials includes people of different background which directly refuses against this political ideology of its time.

4.) Mark Fisher describes the video as “eerie”, a few of its conventions do indeed relate to traditional hammer horror films, like the lowkey lighting, the blunt facial expressions along with the dark clothing.

5.) I don’t think that the music was made to dance to or listen to out of romance like the article mentions but it was made purely for its relatable content and for listeners and audiences to be able to connect and relate to its lyrics.

BBC 30TH ANNIVERSARY GHOST TOWN

1.) The article describes the song and music video as “defining of an era”.

2.) Regarding social of the time in 1981, there was a rising unemployment rate alongside with melancholy and unease of the society.

3.) The Specials reflected on an increasingly multicultural Britain because of their own diverse backgrounds, ranging from English to Caribbean. They grew up within a diverse community and know the values of it and that is why they want to protect it.

4.) Paul Gilroy’s liquidity of culture theory could be applied within this bands context since its fluidity is within its diversity and community as a multicultural group.

5.) John Barry was a well credited composer because of his “iconic and defining” soundtracks. He worked on many films like the James Bond franchise, Born Free, etc.

GHOST TOWN MEDIA FACTSHEET

1.) The factsheet suggests that regarding mise-en-scene within the music video it uses he style of British social realist films, the genre being characterised by its working class men and by highlighting often bleak environments like lacks of hope. 

2.) The lightning creates intertextual references of the film industry, hammer horrors to be specific, due to its lowkey lighting and uses of chiaroscuro. 

3.) Non-verbal codes like the costumes help communicate meanings within the video like emphasising the idea of the working class man within Britain and the 2-tones ideals. 

4.) The factsheet suggests the editing and camera work is shot in short durations which give a frantic feel to the video. Reinforced by the handheld and disorientating camerawork within whip pans and canted angles. 

5.) The narrative theory of Todarov can be applied through his idea of equilibrium since the band sets off together looking for something to do whilst the eeriness accompanies them.

6.) Applying genre theory to the music video like collective identity in the sense that the video natures a sense of male collective identity and shares the experience of trying to negotiate identity.

7.) There are a plethora of different people, places and groups represented within the music video like people of colour, an urban undeveloped setting as well as the entire use of the working class in order to portray a narrative. 

8.) Gauntlett's work on collective identity can be applied to the music video through the sense of male collective identity and shared experience or trying to negotiate identity. 

9.) Gender theorist can be applied to the music video (like Judith Butler) since these musicians are performing the structure of the patriarchy which includes the concept of brotherhood, camaraderie and male solidarity.

10.) Postcolonial theorists like Paul Gilroy can help us understand the meaning of the "Ghost Town" music video through double consciousness due to the experience of being part of a black minority in a predominantly white culture, seeing black representations being constructed for white pekoe from the outside with very little self-representation. 

EXTENSION 

"Punk was dying, the Sex Pistols had split, the charts were full of second-division punk bands and people were after something new," says Horace Panter

There was a need for a genre if music that accurately reflected and portrayed their society and targeted it towards the youth of the community who were the ones to do something about it. 

“Realism? This was urban decay writ large, accompanied by a kick drum and a muted horn. The kaleidoscopic “Ghost Town” didn’t offer balm for a world-weary pop-culture; rather it was a political exhortation. “For those of us who were not part of Thatcherism’s good life, for those of us who were excluded, then ‘Ghost Town’ spoke to our bruised hearts,” says Tony Parsons, who was still writing for the NME at the time.“

Ghost Town did not glamorise but accurately portrayed the suffering within the youth due to the government. Song mentions this multiple times within the lines of “people getting angry” and “government putting people on a shelf”