"If we get through for two minutes only, it will be aaaaaa... POLL!" - The Jam - Singles (1977-1982)

('The Modern World' is probably the weakest thing here, IMO.)

I really hope someone throws 'When You're Young', 'The Dreams of Children', 'Funeral Pyre', 'Absolute Beginners' or 'Just Who is the 5 o'Clock Hero?' a vote, because they're all great. 'The Bitterest Pill' and 'Beat Surrender', too.

Funeral Pyre's got my vote.

('The Modern World' is probably the weakest thing here, IMO.)

Yeah, that was one I could never get on board with -- the single or the album (although the US album at least had "All Around The World").

Beat Surrender was a massive disappointment as a swansong, dull verses and a by-numbers chorus, and I don't rate 5 O Clock Hero much either. News of the World has a killer intro, even if the song doesn't quite do it. That was released after Weller ditched their would-be third album and Weller went off to rewrite, the new songs becoming All Mod Cons. I think the dark horse with a surprisingly high vote may be Bitterest Pill, their romantic pop moment.

This is the Modern World is definitely my least favourite Jam album, but it could have been so much better if they hadn't rushed it or put themselves under pressure to deliver two albums in the same year. In the City was released in May 1977, and then This is the Modern World in November 1977, which is just nuts.

Even with that in mind though, I think there's a lot of keepers on the record: 'Standards', 'Life Through a Window', 'In the Street Today', 'Here Comes The Weekend', 'Tonight at Noon' ... I also quite enjoy their version of 'In the Midnight Hour'

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Really? 'Just Who is the 5 o'Clock Hero?' is one of my personal highlights of The Gift, although it's not my absolute favourite track on there... that award would go to 'Running on the Spot', with no hesitation or doubt.

I like 'Beat Surrender' a lot, but I would have preferred it if they'd recorded 'A Solid Bond In Your Heart' like they were originally going to. There's a demo on the box set of The Jam doing 'A Solid Bond In Your Heart' with the middle 8 that would eventually end up in 'Beat Surrender' ... it's the same version as the one on Extras, except that section was edited out for the Extras release. Of course, when The Style Council eventually recorded it, Weller had to write a new middle section.

I always liked "Beat Surrender," but I didn't hear it until four years after it was released, so there was no FINAL JAM SINGLE EVER baggage.

"Shopping," though, is really underrated, and it's where Rick and Bruce proved they could hang with Weller's new direction.

Yeah, I agree with you on both points there... I think 'Shopping' is very underrated and possibly gets overlooked because The Jam hadn't really attempted anything like that before, and with it being on the B-side of the final Jam single it kinda sticks out like a sore thumb in their discography. It does, though, prove that Foxton and Buckler could have indeed done a great job with the stuff Weller ended up going on to do with The Style Council. I couldn't imagine them being too into some of the stuff on Cafe Bleu and definitely not The Cost of Loving or Confessions of a Pop Group (although most of their audience weren't into those records either, as much as I think Confessions of a Pop Group is underrated) but it's not hard to imagine Foxton and Buckler getting stuck into 'Speak like a Child', 'Party Chambers', 'Headstart for Happiness', 'A Solid Bond in Your Heart', 'My Ever Changing Moods', 'You're the Best Thing', 'Shout to the Top!', 'Walls Come Tumbling Down', 'Come to Milton Keynes', 'A Man of Great Promise', 'Down in the Seine', 'Internationalists' etc. If they were capable of doing something like 'Precious' and 'Shopping', I can't see why they couldn't have done 'Long Hot Summer' ...

Well, I think Weller acknowledged that the Jam ended too early, but then again I can imagine doing those songs w/B&R would have been harder work.

With the albums, someone had a theory that every other album is great.

So, "In the city" yes, "Modern World" no, "All mod coins" yes, "Setting Sons" no, "Sound Affects" yes, "The Gift" no.

Kinda works for me - those between albums all had great tracks, but they also have some real clunkers like 'Don't tell them yr sane" or "little boy soldiers" or .. Various either over-ambitious or muddled, or often just trying too hard.

Wait, what? Really? What was the context? The only chart hit Weller had here was "My Ever Changing Moods" (#29).

Sorry, I wasn't clear: I heard "That's Entertainment" on a local college station! Casey may have steered my love of everything new wave but nothing left of the dial.

'Little Boy Soldiers' is great, although live versions of it are pretty hit and miss. Setting Sons may have been improved by having some of the non-album tracks of the period on it, but even with the strings version of 'Smithers-Jones' and 'Heat Wave' on it, it's still a 10/10 album for me. In fact, I prefer the way The Jam do 'Heat Wave' to the way The Who do it. Only track I would drop from The Gift would be 'The Planner's Dream Goes Wrong', which I've never really liked.

it's the same version as the one on Extras, except that section was edited out for the Extras release.

Jesus, Turrican... that's an obscure bit of trivia! I always assumed they were two different demos, what a strange choice for "Extras".

I don't think its true

Sorry, I wasn't clear: I heard "That's Entertainment" on a local college station! Casey may have steered my love of everything new wave but nothing left of the dial.

Ah, OK, that makes more sense!

The only time I ever heard the Jam on the radio was a late night airing or two of "A Town Called Malice" on WXRT in Chicago. The same station also played a recording of their 1980 show at the Park West, which I think I still have a cassette of somewhere. I remember it well, and I can only assume that Weller's "Chicago gig, brilliant!" in the liner notes of Dig The New Breed refers to this show.

Yep, Chicago gig was brilliant:
http://youtu.be/5WBWrpMv4GM

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They edited out a couple of other bits too, like the ooh ooh's in the intro, and the mixes are slightly different - otherwise, yeah, it's the same version.

I played the Jam do much in those days, even through the eighties, I don't think I have a need to play any of them now.

I wouldn't put any of it down, though.

So much, not do much.

I can't even really remember the a-side anymore but "When You're Young"/"Smithers-Jones" is a great single, not as good as "Strange Town"/"Butterfly Collector" though.

The thing that strikes me most, looking back at all the old Jam footage, is how cool Weller looks in the Jam era. He's went from that to looking like a bit of an embarrassment - ill-advised haircuts and everything, wearing stuff that he just can't pull off anymore. It's not quite Steve Marriott going from Small Faces cool to wearing dungarees, but...

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Ah, 'When You're Young' has possibly my favourite set of lyrics the guy has ever written!

Smithers-Jones >>>>>>>>> When You're Young

Boston got it right, relating the political with the personal.

That 'put on the kettle' bit, that was Weller's writing, wasn't it?

He's singing it, isn't he?

He had that disillusioned romanticism down to a tee, and also the alienated council house boy from the sticks getting grief in the city, where they humiliate you for even daring to approach them, also the subject of Strange Town. I love the way the Jam took discipline from punk and the mod thing, turning male working class rebellion into so many beautifully crafted pop singles, with their soft hearts all over the b-sides. Weller may have worn a psychedelic shirt and stolen some Revolver riffs, but there was no way he was going to screw up his mind with LSD and cult religions, or his music with dodgy synth washes. Instead he went back into soul and jazz. Discipline! The early SC singles were hit and miss, but Long Hot Summer is just gorgeous.

Yeah, I remember hearing that Weller helped Foxton out with the end part of 'Smithers-Jones' writing-wise, although he doesn't get credited for it. He definitely sings that bit. The main inspiration for the song clearly was 'Can't Reach You' by The Who, though... with a snatch of The Kinks' 'Victoria' at the end.

Weller didn't really embrace any kind of "rock star" excesses until his solo career, did he? I think that period between Polydor dropping The Style Council through to clawing his way back via his first couple of solo albums shook him up a bit to the point where he thought "yeah, fuck it, I'm going to embrace these rock star trappings while I can" ... When he was in The Jam, Weller was clearly anti that kind of stuff.

"The Modern World" intro will always in my mind be the intro to "The Modern Rock Report" on Live 105, the local modern/alt-rock station I listened to in the 80s (albeit with lots of static because I lived in the sticks)

Turrican’s mention of the unusual structure of Strange Town led me to write a few lines in praise of this song, and a band led by a talented, angry, but shy and curiously inarticulate youth (despite some fine lyrics). This person, armed with Strummer’s bullshit detector and informed by a fierce punk/mod discipline, has little in common with the man he later became. The Jam always were about the primacy of youth and the power of the single.
Weller’s guitar playing in the Jam usually provides simple, rhythmic lines that allow the rhythm section to lead. The intro over Strange Town’s 5-note guitar figure is dominated by drum patterns, snare rolls, and the verses by a muscular bassline that is a joy. The perspective is the working class lad feeling alienated in the city, the same one as in their debut single 2 years earlier, but with some of the idealism knocked out of him. I love the delivery of the “dreadful snow” line, nailing English small-talk, just as “we don’t know, we don’t care, we gotta go mate”, captures our stand-offish manner with strangers.
Next there is a chorus that has more of the feel of a bridge, chords IV and V and Townsend-like suspendeds. We get a brief, blues-attack guitar solo for half a verse (when he knew that less is more), then that gorgeous middle 8 “I’ve finished with clubs.. etc”. Chord II7 is like the sun coming out at this point, then the surprise E major, dang dang, again showing the skills of his 60s masters. If your face still doesn’t crack a smile, we get a Mr Sheen reference a few moments later which surely will, though only Brits would have known he meant furniture polish.
Instead of a return to the verse, the pace is wound down for a descending guitar pattern that gradually thickens with overdubs, feedback, pickslides and bass riffs towards a point of momentary chaos, such that it’s hard to accurately predict the moment of return for the first verse, even if you know the song well. Yet the instruments lock in so tightly in the verse that the pace is immediately restored. (The Buzzcocks also did this sort of thing, sometimes to even greater effect). The coda resurrects the intro’s five-note figure, but moved up to C major, plus the machine-gun rhythms, a new ascending guitar riff and a line the boys can all shout along to: “Break it up!” What more could you ask for in 3 mins 50?

Wow. Booming post, Dr. X.

I had to go back and read the lyrics because I always found Weller's accent to be a bit thick to my midwestern ears (it was years before I deciphered the line "'Jesus saves' painted by an atheist nutter"). But you nailed it, Dr. X, and it struck me that that level of pop craftsmanship (for lack of a better term) hasn't been heard in his work in several decades.

Other brilliant parts of "Strange Town": the layered feedback in the intro, and Rick's 16th-notes near the end when Paul's singing "straaange town" in falsetto.

Yes! It's just so dense and lovely. Just dug into the extras on the CD boxset again, and found the origin of the Strange Town Middle 8 in a demo, World's Apart, with some different lyrics and context. There was talk of another recycled M8 upthread, I think. Much better on the same CD is a bouncy-pop lost gem, Walking in Heaven's Sunshine

Going Underground

How come they never got back together? Was it just Paul Weller being stubborn?

Excellent post, Dr X O'Skeleton - thanks for that!

Rick's 16th-notes near the end when Paul's singing "straaange town" in falsetto.

^ Which, let's not forget, is the only time that particular bit of music features in the song, and it's not part of the middle 8 or anything - it's like a small bridge to the coda.

How come they never got back together? Was it just Paul Weller being stubborn?

― kornrulez6969, Sunday, April 30, 2017 5:44 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Basically, yes. The reason why The Jam split up in the first place was because Weller wanted the band to "count for something", the thinking being that rather than let the band fade away into irrelevance, he decided to split the band up while they were in their prime and at their commercial height so that they'd always be remembered for being "on top" ... I think part of it was that Weller was a huge fan of the '60s work of The Who and The Kinks and he hated what both bands had turned into, and maybe he felt that the Small Faces had the right idea in splitting up after Ogden's and leaving their fans wanting more. He's also said that he didn't feel that Rick and Bruce would be up for going in some of the directions he wanted to go in with The Style Council etc.

I don't think there would have been any perfect time to re-form The Jam in all honesty. You could have said 1994-1995 would have been the best time to do it, but by then Weller's solo career had taken off. Stanley Road sold over a million copies - he didn't really need to reform The Jam. If they re-formed now it would be absolutely terrible - and there's still tensions between Buckler and the rest of the band.

I think part of it was that Weller was a huge fan of the '60s work of The Who and The Kinks and he hated what both bands had turned into

The Jam's final concert took place six days before (what was assumed to be at the time, and remained so for about three years) the Who's final show.

and maybe he felt that the Small Faces had the right idea in splitting up after /Ogden's/ and leaving their fans wanting more.

Ah, but the Small Faces did the reunion thing! They put out two universally panned records in the late '70s, Playmates and '78 In The Shade. I've heard neither, and I assume listening to them would be a very depressing experience.

Of course they did, and there's no way that Weller was going to make that mistake!

The Small Faces reunion albums are, well look up 'curates egg' on wiki.

There ate some excellent tracks like "Stand by me, I'll stand by you", but there are awful tracks like .. well, one of them is like 'Lazy Sunday' but much worse.

One of them is/was on Spotify.

There's footage of Small Faces playing on Whistle Test during the late '70s era and Marriott is clearly high as a kite.

I remember that at the time, yes.

i listened to snap enough between 83 and 86 to fully internalize most of these songs, but i've not listened to them too often in the past 25 years. hearing the sentimentality of "when youre young," but now very much in the light of my own kids just peeking at some of the zones described in the song, had me almost tearing up while out running today. that was a really weird and surprising change.

so many great singles but "start!" was my start and it sounds as perfect to me today as it did the day i first heard it.

Cafe Bleu is a great album and while I'm sure Weller could have done it with Foxton and Buckler, would it have been any better because of it? I doubt it.

When You're Young is so often overlooked because of the other great singles from that time, but it carries such a charge, musically and lyrically. Similar arrangement tricks to Strange Town, with the layered feedback and descending guitar figures, so easy to fall in love with....

It's hard to imagine tracks like 'A Gospel' existing if Cafe Bleu had been a Jam album.

'Thick as Thieves' is as OTM as 'When You're Young' lyrically, IMO.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

There are several votes I could justify here, these songs are _meaningful_ to me in ways I think no band will match for me, even though I never really felt the Jam were my _favorite_ at any time. Just the damn songs-- so good. Going Underground wins here, though Thick as Thieves might nip it, if it were present. I was astonished how strongly Absolute Beginners (damn, Foxton) and When You're Young finished with me, I don't remember those being particularly big for me those decades ago.

"Eating Trifles" et al

I should've noted ilx ruined down in a tube station for me perfectly and forever.

Collateral Damage: "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" by The Jam - What Does It Mean?

Ha, "Town Called Malice" is one of my least-favorite Jam singles. I don't hate it as a song, but it always struck me as too much of a pastiche, and pastiche wasn't what made the Jam great.

Never liked it much either. Neither did Mark E. Smith...

In his notes accompanying the 2005 expanded version of Room To Live Daryl Easlea writes: "The intro to 'Solicitor [In Studio]'...showed again Smith's dalliance with topicality, as the title was a swipe at the UK's then-no.1 single, 'A Town Called Malice' by The Jam." [Note: this wasn't actually the case, as the number one single at the time was The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Tight Fit; The Jam's had been the previous chart topper]. Indeed, the riff which goes with the song on its second recorded performance (details opposite) veers from an imitation of The Jam's track to something resembling 'I'm Into CB'. The lyrics include the line: "I look for suits." On its first gig rendition, there was no accompanying riff, and somewhat different lyrics: "Got to get out of that city called Crappy/Now I don't like Maggie/All the money I made out of mods has made me feel guilty/A town called Crappy"

From the review on this website of the following gig: 1 April 1982 Nightmoves, Glasgow: "Second and last (?) version of "Town called Crappy" although on this version I think Mark says "Cranky" or "Crikey".... Mark laughs and says to the crowd "you don't even recognise our impersonations."

Hahaha.

It was the closest they ever got to a US hit, though -- #31 on Billboard's "Mainstream Rock" chart, whatever the hell that is/was.

Ah right, now I understand why it won this poll.

Also Billy Elliot, which wasn't a massive box-office success in the US, but it's safe to say it was the first/only time most of the film's American audience ever heard the Jam.

Also it's their best song.

I forgot to vote.

haha, no problem at all with Town Called Malice as #1.
I always found those Style Council albums a snoozefest, should I revisit?

Our Favourite Shop is a good album from start to finish, and Confessions of a Pop Group is a personal favourite of mine as the first half of the record was Weller (at that point) outside of his comfort zone and producing some really beautiful music.

On the whole, though, The Style Council were more about individual moments rather than the LP's, which is why the box set is so essential if you're a Weller fan, and the best way to approach The Style Council rather than any of their LP's.

Also it's their best song.

― dorsalstop, Friday, May 5, 2017 1:50 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If it's the only one you've heard, sure.

The Mark E Smith jibe I remember was: "I understand you, I live in a town called m.. m.. marquis cha cha!"
Solitary vote for Absolute Beginners. I always thought it was a big dip in quality - especially after the post-punk attack of Funeral Pyre - then I played it again this week and remembered the guitar, funk that growls! plus the bass and the horns carrying the tune. That sound got tired quickly on the last album, but its perfectly balanced on that single.

lol last week while revisiting Absolute Beginners with a bass-playing friend, I wrote: "Holy shit Bruce Foxton's bass in that song is- not what I remembered. And that guitar is a fucking blast. As pop craftsmanship issue, that could be...their best song? I've probly not listened to it since 1986, so I still know it _by heart_, but as parts and arrangements, almost not at all."

That town was called m..m..m..Manchester.