Celebrate the Bullet is the second studio album by the English 2 tone ska revival band the Selecter, released on 27 February 1981 by Chrysalis Records after the band had left the 2 Tone label. The album was recorded with producer Roger Lomas, who plays bass on some songs, and frequently seeks a more slow, eclectic sound, with new wave influences. Band members Charley Anderson and Desmond Brown, uncomfortable with the new approach, left the band during production and after the release of 1980 single "The Whisper" to form the band the People. They were replaced by keyboardist, James Mackie,Interviews with James Mackie, February 2006; November 2008 and bass player, Adam Williams. Ian Dury and the Blockheads bassist Norman Watt-Roy played bass on the title-track and "Washed Up and Left for Dead".
The album's lyrical content is frequently bleak, taking inspiration from early 1980s racial and social conflicts, economic problems and war. Upon release, the album was a critical and commercial failure. The release of the title track as a single unintentionally coincided with the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, and "at such a time it would have been a brave radio producer who would have earmarked a track titled 'Celebrate the Bullet' for a prime time slot." As a result, the single and album flopped and the band subsequently broke-up. Nonetheless, the album has more recently been reappraised, and is considered by lead vocalist Pauline Black to be among the band's best work. Captain Oi! Records remastered the album in 2001.
Background and recording The Selecter's debut studio album Too Much Pressure (1980), with its blend of ska, reggae and punk and socio-conscious lyrics, was a critical and commercial success; however, the aftermath of its release was fraught with problems for the band. Their relationship with 2 Tone Records was diminishing, who were releasing merchandise without band consent, and also felt "there were not enough avenues for them to broaden their musical horizons again this was due to the huge success of 2 Tone." During these events, the group "admitted that they were less than happy" with Too Much Pressure (1980), which they felt was the product of what their singer Pauline Black recalled was "a life-span, which was telescoped down into a very short space of time". The band left the label and signed a direct deal with its parent label Chrysalis to record their second studio album, Celebrate the Bullet. They recorded a non-album single, "The Whisper", which was a Top 40 hit.
In August 1980, the band convened at Coventry's Horizon Studios, the same place they recorded their debut studio album, to begin "laying down possible new tracks" for the album, "guaranteed to bring on a fresh bout of arguments." Most of the band had taken influence from new wave and wanted to incorporate the sound into their new album. However, a minority of the band were put off, and the arguments in the band about the album material were tense, with Black recalling: "I think the main protagonists were [bassist Charley Anderson] and [keyboardist Desmond Brown]". On 21 August, Brown inexplicably left the band, saying that he was "done with the band." Anderson soon also asked to leave the band. He had refused to play on the album and later stating he "didn’t think it was the right direction for the band." Brown and Anderson soon formed short-lived 2 Tone band the People with Silverton Hutchinson, original drummer for the Specials.
Shortly after, when the Selecter played non-album single "The Whisper" on Top of the Pops on the same day that Ian Dury and the Blockheads performed "I Want to Be Straight", Dury observed the band were short of band members, and in a studio lift following the show's recording, proposed to the Selecter that his bassist Norman Watt-Roy play bass on a few of their tracks until the band found official replacements for Brown and Anderson. Black called Watt-Roy "the quintessential new wave bassist." Watt-Roy ultimately played bass on the title-track and "Washed Up and Left for Dead", two brooding songs written by band lyricist and founder Neol Davies which "both needed a definitive bass line, the kind of melodic line that was a 'hook' in itself." Black recalled "it was obvious that he understood the sparing subtlety required to match the evocative vocal lines and poignant guitar melodies."
Celebrate the Bullet was recorded with record producer Roger Lomas, who had produced the band's debut single "On My Radio"; Black had regretted the fact he did not produce Too Much Pressure (1980) as a result of the band's democratic decision against it, but the new line-up allowed him to return. Lomas played bass on the other songs that Watt-Roy did not perform on until Adam Williams joined the band as bassist and official replacement for Anderson, "and as luck would have it Williams knew a keyboard player, James Mackie who could also play saxophone, which was ideal for the musical direction which, The Selecter were about to take." Barry Jones, who had played trombone for the band beforehand, also guested on the recording.
Music Celebrate the Bullet is a dark and tense album, featuring a "less lively sound" than previous releases, and is strongly political, with lyrics focusing on social and racial relations, "cold war paranoia and fear for the future." In the words of Martin C. Strong, the album was a "more lugubrious state-of-the-nation musing" than Too Much Pressure (1980). In the Rough Guide to Rock, Peter Buckley said, "with a title like Celebrate the Bullet, we knew we were in for a serious sit-down talking-to. Sure, it was still pop music, it was still Britska (a term that, thankfully, was never widely used), it was still Pauline and the lads dancing around with lots of brass and a beat you could lean against, but it wasn't happy, not at all." One interviewer, whilst interviewing Black, described it as "a dark, haunting, bluesy iteration of ska that to my knowledge has never been attempted before or since." He said that "at times the songs have a new wave feel via synthesized keyboard melodies that buzz over Neol Davies' blistering, bluesy and soulful guitar solos and riffs. Other times its almost undefinable as the songs are driven by a seamless melting pot of rock, reggae and new wave via memorable melodies that stick in your head."
"Bristol and Miami" concerns the racial riots that had occurred in spring 1980 in Bristol (the 1980 St Pauls riot) and Miami (the 1980 Miami riots), and is said to slightly predate fellow 2 Tone band the Specials' "Ghost Town", a documentation of UK riots released later on in 1981. Freelance journalist Cazz Blase described the song in an article written for the website The F-Word, "The punky ska rhythms of ‘Bristol & Miami’ are typical of the Two Tone sound, and there's an energy to the track that hasn't faded over time. The song can't be read as encouraging rioting, but there is an eerie embattled exuberance to it, which compliments the tension in the lyrics. The strangely uplifting ending reflects this contradiction of styles and thoughts." "Red Reflections" is a "joyous" song. The title song has a "staunch anti-violence, anti war-theme."
"Deep Water" has been interpreted as "the inner monologue of a person here in the U.S. contemplating the loss of their home in the sub-prime mortgage crisis." Black, who sees the song as working "on many different levels", named it after a town that Black saw a highway sign for whilst riding on the band's tour bus during their first American tour. She explained, "The name just struck a chord with how I was feeling at the time. That tour was fraught with internal problems among us and I was deeply unhappy for most of the time, so I began to pen a song to reflect those inner feelings. I finished writing the song just around the time that keyboardist Desmond Brown finally walked out of the band for some unknown reason, just prior to the sacking of Charley Anderson. Believe me, it really did feel as though we were in ‘deepwater’ back then." "Selling Out Your Future", written by lead guitarist Compton Amanor, is a "sad, lifting, reggae paean to recessionary Britain."
Packaging and visuals For Celebrate the Bullet, the band "embarked on a new way of styling [themselves]." Davies' wife, Jane, designed the album cover and the new band logo, used on the LP's labels, which "looks like a red, white and black 'pie chart' and is affectionately known as the 'pie of cheese' in some circles." In her autobiography, Black regretted Jane's stylings, as she felt the band needed more potent, striking artwork when their career was in as much damage as it was at the time. She explained:
Jane's "absurd" band stylings accompanied a new look for band members, an image change which "wasn't going to help either;" Black forwent her "trademark trilby hat and Fred Perry's in favour of a frizzy Afro and jump suit." "It was decided that I should rid myself of my hat and let my hair show," Black recalled, "essentially, it was considered a good idea to feminise myself so that we could appeal to a wider cross-section of people. In retrospect this was a terrible mistake and I should have had the foresight and sense to resist, but at times I am the kind of person who says 'anything for a quiet life' and, to be honest, I was by now totally at sea." Other members of the band also changed their clothing and visual appearance; in Black's words, Davies "grew pointed sideburns as though he was Daryl Hall's clone" and Gaps "looked like a maracas-playing escapee from a soca band."
The original British LP cover "shows a TV with a red screen, over which the words ‘Celebrate the bullet’ have been printed," whilst the back cover features an image of the band on the television instead. The American edition, however, swaps the front and back cover images, and the album cover also sometimes varied in European countries, often featuring the band's logo superimposed over the image of the television. Original copies of the album featured a black belly band on the sleeve.
Release and promotion On 6 February 1981, Chrysalis released "Celebrate the Bullet" as the album's lead single. However, its release date was "unfortunate timing" due to the murder of John Lennon two months earlier. The United Kingdom's leading radio station at the time, BBC Radio 1, banned the track as their DJ Mike Read, taking the song name literally, believed the band "were trying to say something clever about [Lennon's murder], which of course couldn't have been further from the truth." As a result of the ban, the song was a commercial failure, failing to chart on the UK Singles Chart. Chrysalis hurried to release Celebrate the Bullet, releasing it on 27 February 1981, ahead of its original intended release date, "hoping that when the single was seen in context with the overall sentiments of the album, it would be looked at anew and interest would be stimulated again." However, the "salvage attempt" was "blown out of the water" with the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan a month later.
No further singles, other than "Facing Situations" in Spain, were released from the album, and it only reached number 41 on the UK Albums Chart and staying on the chart for only four weeks, a huge decline from the top 5 peak achieved by Too Much Pressure (1980). HMV had reduced the price of the album to £3.99 as part of their winter sale in 1981, and specifically published an advertisement in the NME concerning the album's discount price, in hope of clearing unsold copies. The declining commercial fortunes for the band and crumbling relationships inside the band ultimately led to them breaking up shortly after its release.