What? You wife likes that song?Mrs Spires says she's removed you from her Christmas card list!
Brilliant stuff mate.Lots of words sorry
It's hard in retrospect to listen to The Jam. Lots of other bands sound like The Jam and The Jam sound like a lot of other bands. I spent a lot time trying to figure out what the songs reminded me of. Even what other The Jam songs these songs sound like.
What sets The Jam apart is the bass playing of Bruce Foxton closely followed by the lyrics of Paul Weller. Wellers delivery is a little one note and this is an area where the bands that rip of The Jam do better. However if you take away Wellers words they are an infinitely worse band and the songs generally are of a very high quality. I really enjoyed this album.
The worst song isn't even their song. David Watts isn't a very good Kinks song and The Jam don't improve it. Frustratingly though it's the song that gets stuck in your head which supports Foggys assertion that Weller can't write hooks.
All Mod Cons is a nice opener and foreshadows musically and lyrically how the rest of the album will go. It ends too soon though. To Be Someone tells the story of the prodigal son if he didn't return home and parts of it will be recycled later in The Jam's careers.
Mr Clean has a super annoying guitar riff and a bitter and jealous reverse snobbery class thing but it appears to be a popular song so maybe it's just me. I don't know if the contrast with David Watts is deliberate and juxtaposes the positivity of the 1960's with the realities of 1970's Britain. If neither of these songs existed I wouldn't mourn their loss.
English Rose sounds like an Oasis B-Side and is fine with a nice subtle key change. In The Crowd sounds like a thousand other songs but is my favourite as it derails into a psychedelic rock out which really really sounds like something else I can't put my finger on and until I remember what it is I'll just describe as ending like a Stone Roses song if funk hasn't been invented. In the olden days of LP's this would have been a great way to close Side A (I think it's an Oasis song that this ending reminds me of).
Side B starts pretty week. Billy Hunt is cockney rhyming slang for childish and immature. Foxtons bass line almost saves it but doesn't quite. It's Too Bad really really really really wants to be a Beatles song. This section reminds me of the pastiches they'd do on Horrible Histories. It's all very on the nose.
Fly sounds like if Nick Drake and The Who had tried to invent teleportation and in their experiments had got their genetics mixed up. I want to hate this song because it never really manages to be coherent but it's definitely growing on me.
The Place I Love suffers from having Paul Weller sing it. I imagine Gaz Coombes likes this song and would deliver it better. A Bomb In Wardour Street demonstrates where Weller is great and not so great in equal measure. He's trying hard though.
Down in the Tube Station at Midnight sounds like The Jam doing a cover of a Jam song. It's flipping brilliant. Foxton is destroying his bass. Plucking it so hard that it sounds like he's slapping it and then tastefully throwing in some harmonics without missing a step. That this nearly wasn't on the album is criminal and I wonder how much Going Underground was written in response to Paul Weller's hesitation to include this on the album. Maybe I'm over thinking it. In any event the bass is incredible and Weller is rushing things in his delivery which I think some of the other songs could use.
The more I write and think about this album the more I actually love it and the ending track kind of encapsulates how I've felt about this whole album. It all sounds like other songs but the other songs it sounds like are also really good.
8 out of 10 because it sounds great and but loses marks for David Watts and Billy Hunt. I've had it on repeat for the last three hours
What? You wife likes that song?
Now there's an album title!baader-meinhof mugshot sneer
Did a Peel Session mid-80sNow there's an album title!
Again, interesting.Love this album and love The Jam, their music still sounds great today over 45 years later, they've definitely stood the test of time.
Love David Watts even if it is a cover.
Proper music from a proper band, Weller knew the score before anyone else imho.
I understand the male comparison.Again, interesting.
Basically because I reached a different conclusion to your first statement while agreeing with your second.
@mrbelfry put together a very comprehensive review of the album that ultimately you can’t argue with and there again you might not come to the same conclusions as he.
Music is totally subjective and how old you were on first listen of anything can have a very lasting effect on your memory and appreciation of any album.
I find myself looking on this album as very good but much more of its time than @manimanc would.
I find myself agreeing with an 8 /10 but wondering is that nostalgia. Is it better than the 7 I gave INXS. Yes and no.
This is not an album that I would put on with my wife or play in the background in company. It is very much a male album of its time and of its time I would say it’s better than INXS.
But I’m more likely to play INXS in the background than The Jam.
There’s no accounting for taste.