Coventry, UK · ska

The Selecter

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2 Tone originals — Pauline Black fronting ska's sharpest political dance party since 1979.

The Selecter emerged from Coventry in 1979 as part of the 2 Tone movement, sharing a label and a scene with the Specials. Neol Davies and John Bradbury had cut an instrumental version of the song back in 1977, and it finally surfaced as the B-side of 'Gangsters' in 1979, reaching number six in the UK. Davies then built a band around it, pulling in local musicians including keyboard player Desmond Brown and bassist Charley Anderson.

Fronted by Pauline Black alongside Arthur 'Gaps' Hendrickson, the band combined Jamaican ska and rocksteady rhythms with punk speed and pointedly political lyrics about racism, unemployment and life in Britain's industrial cities. Black was spotted by Davies and invited to audition, completing a seven-piece lineup that was unusually mixed in race and gender for its time.

Singles including 'On My Radio,' 'Three Minute Hero' and 'Missing Words' came in quick succession, followed by the album Too Much Pressure. The original lineup lasted barely a year, and though later members carried the band through further recordings, it split in 1981.

The Selecter reformed a decade later with Davies and Black joined by members of Bad Manners, and Black kept the name going after Davies departed in 1993, recording and touring under it until 2006. A separate Davies-led version toured in parallel until Black won the rights to the Selecter trademark in 2011.

Black, who has also worked as an actor and writer, has led various incarnations of the group over the decades, and the current line-up continues to record new material as well as playing the 2 Tone catalogue, releasing Human Algebra, their sixteenth studio album, in 2022.

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