"Snap!" Was The First Jam Compilation Ever Released. The Year Was 1983. The CD Edition Was To Omit 8 Tracks.

Quite a gem, this is the CD reissue of a double LP that collected all the singles and the best album tracks that the epoch-making band led by Paul Weller produced during its time together. Eight tracks have been dropped to make it all fit into one CD – the eight album tracks. That makes the CD stand as a sort of singles collection.

Every A-side is featured, and that includes the compositions “’A’ Bomb In Wardour Street” and “Dreams Of Children”, songs that were released as part of double A-sided singles. Of course, all the non-album tracks that they were to release are featured – “Going Underground”, “Strange Town”, “When You Are Young”, and their final #1: “Beat Surrender”  (a song that feels more Style Council than The Jam).

Rarities come in the shape of a harmless demo version of “That’s Entertainment”, and a remixed “Funeral Pyre” – a song nobody liked the first time around.

I noticed that the version of “Start!” is slightly abridged – the outro is different, the final “And what you give is what you GET!” is not there. Why? Also, the sound quality when pitched against the remastered CDs is noticeably different – “Eton Rifles” and “’A’ Bomb In Wardour Street” sound completely removed from what you can listen to in the rereleases. In the long run, that is certainly interesting and a nice bonus if you already have all their albums in their enhanced incarnations.

Although other Jam compilations do exist, “Compact Snap!” is the one to pick as far as I am concerned. A “Greatest Hits” compilation was issued in 1992 and it omitted “Dreams Of Children” but included “Just Who Is The 5 O’Clock Hero?” – that was the one major track excluded from “Compact Snap!”. And in 1997, a new compilation was released. It sort of updated the 1992 package. Named “The Very Best Of The Jam”, it had all the tracks featured in “Greatest Hits” plus “’A’ Bomb In Wardour Street” and “Dreams Of Children”. But it did so at the expense of having far too many single edits. My money is on the “Compact Snap!” CD. If you can find it, go for it by all means.

Would I recommend purchase of this compilation: Yes
Do I feel like digging deeper into their catalog after listening to it: Yes

"Extras" Assembles Rare Songs & Takes From All Over The Jam's Relatively Brief Career.

Extras was a compilation of Jam b-sides, rare tracks and demos that was issued in 1992. The main value the compilation has always had is in portraying the development of Paul Weller as a composer, since cover versions that map out the way he shaped the sound of the trio as they went along are extensively provided. We have covers of The Beatles (“And You Bird Can Sing”), The Small Faces (the charged “Get Yourself Together”) and The Who (“Disguises” and “So Sad About Us”, the b-side to “Down In The Tube Station At Midnight” that paid tribute to the passing of Keith Moon) along with many R & B and soul covers like “Move On Up”, “I Got You (I Feel Good)” and “Fever” (which is fused with Paul’s own “Pity Poor Alfie”).

Some of the best original b-sides include “The Butterfly Collector” (a timeless take on the groupies and hangers on that have always littered the music scene), and the electric version of Foxton’s Smithers-Jones (a string quartet performs it on “Setting Sons“; the original version was the flipside to “When You Are Young”). There is also Weller’s own “Shopping” (a shuffly number that manages to marry the vision which led to the Style Council with the sound of The Jam) and the salient “Tales From The Riverbank”. That one has always been deemed as one of those “should have been an a-side” track by fans, critics and Weller himself. Its placement on the album is also very good, being situated right at the beginning with “The Dreams Of Children”.

There are also two unreleased Weller originals. They are “No One In The World” and “Hey Mister”. Both are performed by him unaccompanied – the former is played on guitar, and “Hey Mister” is played on piano. The songs have a disaffected outlook on life and politics respectively, and I think they would have made for interesting group performance.

Speaking of Paul playing solo, that is also the way most of the featured demos are presented – he plays “Burning Sky” on acoustic, “The Eton Rifles”, “Thick As Thieves”  and “Saturday Kids” on electric, and he handles both guitar and bass on “But I’m Different Now” (which lacks every ounce of punch without Rick’s drums). The demo of “Boy About Town” is a group one, but it is not really a demo – it is more of a rough mix.

For fans of Weller, this album is intoxicating. The one complaint I have is that there were enough truly unreleased alternate tracks and rarities spotlighting the whole band to fill an entire CD – the boxed set “Direction Creation Reaction” (1997) made that clear. A slew of these group performances could have been added to “Extras” in order to give it a more collective feel. As it stands, it transmits the idea that The Jam was Paul’s band. That is not entirely inaccurate, of course – he led the band, he wrote their own material and when he said “That’s it” that was it. Did this album add more fuel to the fire that resulted in the book “The Jam – Our Story” by Buckler and Foxton? Hmm…

Rating: 7/10

The Jam's Final Studio Album Was Issued In 1982. It Was Named "The Gift".

The Gift was to be the final Studio album cut by The Jam, and it simply showcases how Weller ambitions had massively outgrown the band. In places it sounds like a Style Council record that has Foxton and Buckler looking over their shoulders and glancing at the spots their musical ideas where when they began. Because they had little to contribute by this point. It is not necessarily their fault – Weller has come up with some textures and grooves that are totally un-Jam like, in the same way that Pete Townshend brought along influences for the recording of The Who’s “Who Are You” that left many band members (especially  Keith Moon) stranded. When that happens, a band takes its last bows and walks offstage.

These style excursions that do not work include “The Planner’s Dreams Go Wrong” and “Circus”, while “Running On The Spot” has potential that is never realized. Still, some compositions do work out to a lesser or bigger extent – “Precious” is quite effective, and the monster hit “Town Called Malice” gave everybody high hopes for the album (it was released some time ahead of the record, coupled with “Precious”). For its part, the soulful title track falls somewhere in the middle.

At any rate, we should never forget this is the album that has “Just Who Is The 5 O’Clock Hero?”, a song that was released as a single in Germany and which became a British import hit (it actually remains the best selling import in the history of England). The song is not without charm, but Bruce and Rick sound like mere bit-players. Weller himself said he was happier with a demo he had assembled.

Leaving aside the stylistic detours that pay off, when the band sticks to its “classic” sound the results are consistently good. “Happy Together” and “Ghosts” (the two tracks that are placed at the beginning) are compelling in their round sound, with Ghosts in particular standing as the most fragile moment of Paul on record. The song goes hand in hand with “Carnation”, a conversation between two halves of the same person in which the vulnerability of “Ghosts” is buried beneath a self veneer of arrogant impetus.

At the end of the day, the break up of the band is now seen as a well-timed one. They went as far as they could, and that was it. For his next band, Weller would carry on beyond the point of reasonability and the results were to be disastrous. We should be glad that The Jam did never really tarnish their reputation, and that their legacy is mostly coherent. Their parting record shows us the reason they had to say goodbye. They decided to show that to us. Not many artists do that, and not that many within the public do care. But The Jam and its public did. This was the obvious way their time together would end.

Rating: 7/10

In Theory, Each Panel Is Related To A Lyric On The Album

During their brief time together, Paul Weller & Co. were to release 6 albums of original compositions. Three are traditionally regarded as representing their pinnacle. They are “All Mod Cons“, “Setting Sons” and “Sound Affects”. Out of the three, “Sound Affects” is the one I like the least. Here, they sound more like The Beatles than The Kinks or The Who, two bands that had been the predominant influence until then. As the critics aptly insinuated, Sound Affects stands as The Jam’s “Revolver”.

The album bore The Jam’s second chart topper – the song is named “Start”, it was inspired by Orwell’s “Omage To Catalogna”, and the bass part has been taken on permanent loan from The Fab Four’s “Taxman”.

The other major hit the album features is “That’s Entertainment”. The song was issued as a single only in Germany, and it is still the best-selling import single within the United Kingdom.

I have never been that keen on “Start”, but I do enjoy “That’s Entertainment”. In actuality, I consider it as one of the most accurate and evocative descriptions of ennui to have ever been set to music.

The rest of the album is a pop pastiche that includes the considerably good “Pretty Green”, the punkish “But I’m Different Now” and the horn-driven “Boy About Town”. “Man In The Corner Shop” is not a bad song, but the way class distinctions are studied is just too formulaic. And I don’t really get around either “Scrape Away” or “Dream Time”. There is also an instrumental track which is best left alone.

On the other hand, “Set The House Ablaze” is a vibrant take on youth mentality with a whistled refrain that is instantly memorable.

A song that does not elicit either love or hatred as far as I am concerned is “Monday”. It is like the love songs from “All Mod Cons”, only that the writing evinces a shred of maturity.

I know this review did not come across as very positive. I think the album is a good one in general terms – the experience of listening to it is balanced, it holds its own well. It is just that I don’t consider it on par with the two previous albums. I’d love to know what the take of other fans on it is. Please, do let everybody know in the comments!

Rating: 7.5/10

The Cover Adds Even More Panache To The Album

It was only natural that a hardened Who and Kinks fans such as Paul Weller would eventually release an album with conceptual tinges. That is exactly what characterizes the fourth album released by The Jam. The year was 1979, and the name of the release was Setting Sons.

The story involved three childhood friends who became distanced as they grew up, and the responsibilities and the toll of the adult world began manifesting themselves and settling in irretrievably. One of the characters ends up as a left-wing radical, while the other leans markedly to the right. The third character is Weller, who can see both sides clearly.

These songs stand as a lament for lost ideals (“Burning Sky”) and for youth that seems over in a flash (“Thick As Thieves”), as well as dealing with the avarice of the British Empire (the mini-suite “Little Boy Soldiers”, with Foxton playing a cello). The best-known composition (and The Jam’s first top 3 hit) is “The Eton Rifles”, a song narrated from the point of view of the left-wing radical where a scrape with some public school boys is narrated with a true touch of irony and malice.

Weller was not able to come up with enough songs to sustain the concept over the whole album, though, and that is why some songs which are unrelated are included. Prominently among them is a string-led rendition of Bruce Foxton’s most cherished Jam tune, “Smithers Jones”, whilst Weller’s “Saturday’s Kids” gives us one of the best vignettes of life as the British youth in the suburbia knew it ever put to record. Also, a character sketch named “Private Hell” is included and it does not go unnoticed. It features a demolishing bass part, which was directly inspired by the bass lines that Peter Hook (Joy Division’s bassist) used to pump out.

The album’s closer is a cover of Martha & The Vandellas’ “Heatwave”, paying direct homage to The Who – it was a mainstay in their repertoire during their “maximum R&B” years, and also for some time afterwards. It finishes the record on a low point, but the pathway that leads you there is crammed with turns and corners which are worth exploring. This is a very even record, and it is the one Jam album I still listen to with some frequency. It signals the instant Weller became a true generational spokesman. And more successes were right on the agenda – their first number one (“Going Underground”) was to be released shortly and they were to become unstoppable until Weller disbanded The Jam in 1982.

Rating: 8/10

The Front Cover

This album marks the point when The Jam came of age. The year was 1979, and it was their third release – their first album (“In The City”) was very well-received whereas the second one (“This Is The Modern World”) was consistently panned. Both albums were released in 1977.

It includes what most people (count me in) deem as their greatest song: “Down In The Tube Station At Midnight”. Note that although “Tube Station” is the song most people associate with the band, it was not that wildly successful when the album was released. It was a top 20 hit, but it went nowhere near the top slots of the charts then.

The song deals with themes of urban violence and it features an excellent set of lyrics that eventually start meandering, accompanying the confusion of the last segment of the song brilliantly. Foxton and Buckler are impeccable, providing one of the most intricate performances they ever put forth. The bass in particular plays a melodic role that made it all too clear that while Bruce could never catch up with Paul lyrically by then (they both wrote when the band had started) his instrumental contribution was never to be demeaned.

A song that echoes the themes of violence of “Tube Station” is “A Bomb In Wardour Street”, where Paul lamented the role that aggressiveness had taken in the whole punk scene. He explained that people once went to gigs to see new bands, but then they started attending just to kick each other in.

“A Bomb In Wardour Street” was the first single from the album. It was released in conjunction with a cover of “David Watts” (the Kinks’ popular song) where Paul and Bruce traded vocals, and which did quite well on the charts.

Speaking of The Kinks, the album features two character sketches a la Ray Davies: “Mr. Clean” and “Billy Hunt”. The former is a sharp criticism on the austere old Englishmen that “kicked their TV sets after seeing The Sex Pistols” (Weller), whereas the latter is a contagious vignette of a downtrodden boy who enumerates the humiliations every person his age goes through when working for the first time. He ends up retreating to an illusory world of superheroes and bionic powers when things become too much. This fantasy world is obviously polluted by the whole experience, as the illusion is marred by real difficulties – the difficulties grown-ups have to face way too often in life. In the end, a person is bound to mature by renouncing to these fantasies as retiring there would simply mean tarnishing them without repair.

There are also three “love” songs, of which only “English Rose” works for me. The song is performed just by Weller – he plays the acoustic guitar and handles all vocals. The other two love songs are “Fly” (a bit saccharine for me) and “It’s Too Bad”, a song that highlights the connection with The Who in the worst light. The opening tune is not that realized either – it is a short snippet that goes by too quickly and when it is over you are left wondering “Uh?”. Fortunately, the second song (“To Be Someone”, later covered by Noel Gallagher from Oasis) sets everything to right.

The two songs that I haven’t mentioned yet are actually very good – “In The  Crowd” closes the first side inventively enough (watch out for that backwards guitar), whereas “The Place I Love” is one of the few Jam songs Paul still plays to this day.

This album consolidated The Jam and placed the cornerstone for the impact and successes that were soon to come. Although their two previous records have high points (most notably the first one), this is where I advice you to start your collection of their studio albums.

 Rating: 8/10

The Jam Were Characterized By Wearing Black Suits When They First Started. Left To Right: Paul Weller, Rick Buckler & Bruce Foxton.

I have some fantastic memories of the times I was a Jam fan. Their music might just as well be the perfect companion when you are maturing and leaving the world of juvenile irresponsibilities away.

I was introduced to them by John Alroy. That is, many years ago I sent him an e-mail telling him how interesting I found his record’s review website, and asking him which bands could I like since I had completed my Who collection. I also told him I was fond of The Sex Pistols and Oasis. Alroy sent me a very courteous e-mail and told me I would probably like The Jam (he described them as a cross between The Who and The Sex Pistols). He also recommended XTC to me. Hehe. Bingo!

The Who and The Jam. That is a recurrent comparison, and one that frontman Paul Weller did never shrug off. But we must never overlook the influence of another British band that I hope to review sometime soon: The Kinks. Ray Davies played out a monumental role on the Modfather’s narrative style. We could effectively say Weller coupled Townshend’s identity themes with Davies’ descriptiveness of life in England, and came up with something a British public seized up with both hands. The Jam were to have four number one singles during their (relatively brief) time together, from the pub rock days to the year 1982. That was quite a feat back then. They could never replicate their success States-wide. It is not clear whether Weller actually cared or not about that. Well, that is not taking into account his many “Fuck America and their Cadillacs” comments throughout his whole career.

The fact is that The Jam (Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler) were to be one of the most inspiring guitar acts England produced. They also broke up at the exact time – one album more alone would have damaged them irretrievably. Weller had bigger things at the back of his head, and after splitting the band (he was the leader), he pursued a different vision in the shape of The Style Council. The new formula worked for some time, but then it lost the magic. After that, he went solo, and he still has a noteworthy career in the UK.

I must confess I do never listen to The Jam these days. Their music made me feel fantastic when I was younger. Weller himself can not endure listening to his first band’s output, either. The few Jam tunes he performs nowadays often have different lyrics. Still, I am not saying their oeuvre is not worth being tracked down. Pick a greatest hits and see if it clicks with you or not. If you can, let it be “Snap!” – it has all the many non-album singles they released, including “When You Are Young”, “Strange Town”, “Going Underground” and “Beat Surrender”. All of them are essential tunes. And if you can’t still make up your mind, I hope the reviews I am going to publish shortly will shed some light on the subject.

In the meantime, the boys as they started:

And one of their finest non-album singles from a bit later on: