So why is The Selecter’s Too Much Pressure on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
The Selecter belongs in the pantheon of great British bands who updated and revitalized ska by layering in elements of new wave and punk in the early 1980s.*
* Other examples include Madness and The Specials.
Too Much Pressure is the best Selecter album, and the title track is your entry point for the kind of upbeat and ridiculously infectious ska groove that this band was programmed to deliver.
One of The Selecter’s secret weapons is its diverse lineup, which includes both a male and female singer in the form of Arthur “Gaps” Hendrickson and Pauline Black.
“Time Hard” feels like an incredible sped up version of a Jimmy Cliff song. And like much of Cliff’s material, “Time Hard” has a bright, bouncy, and cheerful sound while the lyrics convey a much different sentiment.
Everyday things are getting worse
Everyday things are getting worse
“Danger” leverages the organ to great effect and rides an ultra-catchy melody.
Every ska band worth its salt needs its signature cover song of a classic from a previous generation, and here we have “James Bond,” which includes thrown in lines like “licensed to kill, James Bond!” just in case anyone’s confused about what’s going down.
Pop culture stuff that has something to do with The Selecter’s Too Much Pressure
It is weirdly fascinating to me that the early 1980s features three great songs that have the word “pressure” in the song title.
Of course we have “Too Much Pressure,” and then there’s simply “Pressure” by Billy Joel (off of The Nylon Curtain, #665 of best 1,000 albums ever) and probably the even better known “Under Pressure” by David Bowie and Queen (which would later go on to be sampled in Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”).
Some stats & info about The Selecter – Too Much Pressure
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Ska, British Bands, Ska Revival, New Wave
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Too Much Pressure released? 1980
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #303 out of 1,000
The Selecter’s Too Much Pressure on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Selecter’s Too Much Pressure that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
This pressure got to stop.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.