The Selecter – Subculture
- Written by Rob Crozier
For many the 2 Tone movement of the late 1970s brought us our first taste of Jamaican-flavoured music, most noticeably ska music. If you liked it, but also liked chart music, you liked Madness, if you were cool you liked The Specials, if you knew your music however, then you loved The Selecter.
Currently everything seems to be retro. It’s easy to forget that 2 Tone was one of the first subcultures to be truly retro. That is taking something old (Jamaican ska and dance culture) and celebrating it in a new, updated form.
As if by magic, The Selecter is back with an album called Subculture. The band has had many incarnations over the years, with two rival offshoots of the original line-up. However after some legal wrangling regarding the band’s name and logo, the original vocalist Pauline Black along with Arthur “Gaps” Hendrickson have returned.
Rather than simply trade off the nostalgia of those lost years for those desperately clinging to their links to youth culture, this is an album that attempts to resonant with a current new audience. The first single and lead track ‘Box Fresh’ has already received critical acclaim along with a host of TV and radio exposure.
The album has also been given a huge boost via Prince Fatty, the leading UK reggae producer, who along with band member Neil Pyzer recorded and produced the album. Prince Fatty has given his magic touch via his mixing skills in his studios in Brighton. The album has a fresh, uplifting energy which betrays the band’s experience and years in the business.
The album delivers twelve new tracks with not one hint of nostalgia in sight. Of course, the band’s sound remains rooted in the ska/2 Tone sound. Yet the track ‘Breakdown’ for example focuses very much on 21st century problems. It comments on the racial tensions that still exist between many of the black communities and the police. The band doesn’t shy away from this issue and reels off names such as Stephen Lawrence in an eerie, powerful number.
Elsewhere, other current political themes form the subject matter for their songs as the band illustrate in ‘Hit the Ground Running’. This focuses on the injustice of the recent bedroom tax along with zero hour contracts and the inability for many people to maintain any stability in low paid employment positions.
The Selecter always had their roots in the gritty industrial wastelands of Tory Britain. They now have a drive to draw all subcultures together under the banner of political injustice, which has given this new album the power and relevance that will hopefully catapult the band back to its former heights. The album is obviously politically themed, and is a breath of fresh air in the current vacuous and celeb cult of modern music. This album at least gives us a ray of hope that politics and music can and should mix. It’s great to have them back and we wish them plenty of success and greater exposure.