The Curse of The Selecter?

Like their fellow 2 Tone compatriots The Specials and The Beat, The Selecter have always had a knack for being in touch with the mood of the people and the temper of the times. So it should come as no surprise that The Selecter's astute observations of political machinations and human behavior should lead them to write and record many instantly relevant songs. But the dark side of this gift has been that several of these seemingly prescient tracks have come uncomfortably close to some very ugly real life events:

1) The first episode occurred back in 1981 with the release of the "Celebrate the Bullet" single (read The Duff Guide to Ska appraisal of the song and album of the same name here). While its lyrics do not explicitly refer to political assassination, a gunman's bullet gave it a tragic new context and meaning. "Celebrate the Bullet" was issued just before John Hinckley, Jr. shot President Reagan (and not for any political reason--in his mentally ill mind, he thought this would impress Jodie Foster, whom he was obsessed with; Hinckley identified with/imagined himself to be Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver...and Foster played the child prostitute in the film that Bickle saves), so the overly cautious BBC banned the song (they didn't want to appear to be condoning this act of violence) and it disappeared without charting.

However, if the powers that be at the BBC had actually listened to the lyrics, they would have discovered that Pauline Black urges those burning to avenge a death not to act on this impulse: "Put your finger on the trigger/But you don't have to pull it/'Cos you know it won't bring them/Back to you." "Celebrate the Bullet" is anti-revenge, anti-violence, and anti-gun. But the Beeb was more worried about offending the sensibilities of those who couldn't be bothered to examine the song beyond its bitterly ironic title. This setback, along with 2 Tone's flame-out, the fact that the Celebrate the Bullet album was comprised of mid-tempo ska and reggae (as opposed to the breakneck-speed ska of "Too Much Pressure" or "Three Minute Hero" that many expected of them), and that it reflected a very bleak worldview, doomed the album to the cut-out bins (even though it's a fantastic record that should be in every 2 Tone fan's collection). But this album perfectly captured the awful Cold War paranoia of the early eighties, when it really felt like everything was on the verge of disintegrating into chaos--and would all end in world-wide nuclear annihilation.

2) This past May, the latest incarnation of The Selecter headed by Pauline and Gaps Hendrickson released a fantastic bluebeat version of Woody Guthrie's anti-racist broadside "All You Fascists," which they retitled "Big in the Body, Small in the Mind" (read the Duff Guide to Ska review here), as the first single off their upcoming album, Made in Britain. This cover was a very conscious choice--as at it honors and re-affirms 2 Tone's message of racial harmony and serves as a defiant response to the terrible rise of anti-multiculturalism (in the guise of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant political parties and hate groups) in the UK and Europe. As if on cue, in June the white, Christian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik horrifyingly guns down 68 liberal Norwegian teenagers (and detonates a Timothy McVeigh-like fertilizer bomb that kills 8 people in a government center in Oslo) in his "crusade" against multiculturalism and "Muslim domination" of the West (disturbingly, Breivik has been greatly influenced by professional Islamophobes in the US). While the band's timeliness in addressing the mainstreaming of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and racist thought and policies is spot on, I doubt they ever could have imagined that all of this dumb hatred and fear would come to this.

3) Recorded months before Amy Winehouse's sad and lonely death--and, in addition to the fact that it's a brilliant song, probably chosen for its title that fits in kind of a synergistic way with Pauline's last name, the title of her new autobiography "Black by Design," and perhaps even pride in her skin color--The Selecter issued the excellent "Back to Black" cover (reviewed by the Duff Guide to Ska here) on July 23, 2011 as the flip side of the "Big in the Body, Small in the Mind" 7" vinyl single (though it has been for sale at Selecter gigs during the preceding weeks). In yet another horrible coincidence, this turns out to be the same day Winehouse is discovered dead in her bed (and it's sort of creepy/disturbing to note that this song is about a woman who believes she has nothing to live for after her boyfriend leaves her for a former girlfriend). So out of respect for Winehouse and not to appear to be ghoulishly capitalizing upon her death, The Selecter out-and-out suspend the planned digital release of "Back to Black," which was to take place on July 31, 2011, and distribute a press release expressing sympathy for Amy Winehouse's family, as well as the relatives of those killed in the terrorist attacks in Norway. (The track will eventually appear on CD and LP copies of The Selecter's Made in Britain, due out in September 2011.)

The Selecter were kind enough to send a few preview tracks off of their tremendous new album--several of which ("My England" and "The Time of Our Lives," in particular) offer more pointed social commentary for all of our consideration. I'll be writing about these soon--and am hoping that, in the meantime, the world doesn't feel the need to prove them right once again.

+ + + +

Update: read part 4 of The Curse of The Selecter here!

+ + + +