Released on 19 October 1979[2] on Jerry Dammers' 2 Tone label, the album is seen by some as the defining moment in the UK ska scene.

A digitally remastered edition also featuring promotional videos to "Gangsters" and "Too Much Too Young" as enhanced content was released by EMI in 2002.

"Monkey Man" had been a hit for Toots & the Maytals in 1969, "Too Hot" was a Prince Buster original from 1966, and the opening track, "A Message to You, Rudy" was a Dandy Livingstone single in 1967.

NME praised the album, saying, "Although the predominant musical influence is black (ska, bluebeat, reggae and soul), it's wrapped in ferocious rock'n'roll: the kind of hybrid that so many other British bands have tried to contrive but, in comparison, failed to make convincing ...

Goldman also criticised the lack of understanding of a female point of view in certain songs, but concluded on a positive note: "Perhaps I'm extra critical, because I (still) have great hopes for the future of The Specials".

It felt the album captured the feeling of "Britain in late 1979, an unhappy island about to explode", and that "The Specials managed to distill all the anger, disenchantment, and bitterness of the day straight into their music".

Hardly anyone would have predicted that a musical form so tied to its Afro-Caribbean heritage (as well as its less cool skinhead connections) could, almost overnight, become the trendiest thing across the nation".

It concluded that The Specials "was a classic example of a band making an almost perfect first album, acting as both a mission statement (the rise of right wing groups opposed by the message of Two Tone equality) and as an alternative way to have fun without having to pogo or spit ...The Specials remains a snapshot of a bleaker time, and a wrily comical antidote to political and cultural indifference anywhere".

[16] However, Mojo's David Hutcheon, reviewing the reissue, felt that "Specials doesn't feel quite as exciting as it did 23 years ago".