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Re: The Jam



The Jam were part of the post-Sex Pistols punk scene, yet
far surpased any of those bands muscially and lyrically.
 It's a well known fact that the Sex Pistols ripped of their riff for
"Holidays in the Sun" from the Jam's "In the City".

The Jam was instrumental in a new mod movement
in England, and indeed to a lesser extent here in
the U.S. in the late 70s/early 80s around the time
the film version of "Quadrophenia" came out.

To my knowledge, the Jam have covered
"So Sad About Us" (available on the
excellent compilation LP "Extras").
A good starting point with the Jam would be any of the following
(all available on Polydor Records):

1. The Gift: their last real LP contains some classic songs
about love ("Happy Together")  and self-loathing ("Carnation"), and escaping
where you came from ("Town Called Malice")
2. All Mod Cons--although I don't own it, many Jam fans say this is a must
have, their second
full LP where they matured into a real band that sang and played instead of
screaming
and thrashing.
3. Setting Suns: an aborted concept LP about  3 English
friends who meet on a hillside after a nuclear war; 
contains some excellent songs and a snappy
cover of  "Heat Wave" to balance out the somewhat
black, downbeat lyrical content of the other tunes).
4. Sound Affects: just some great rock/pop
tunes about capitalism and religion ("Pretty Green"; "Man in the
Cornershop"), and, yeah, more love songs that
rock ( "Start", "Monday", "But I'm Different Now") and
fascism ("Scape Away"). Wellers lyrics
are incisive and contemplative at the same time.
The first time I heard The Gift I was blown away
by the depth of the lyrics.
5. Extras! or SNAP! These are  "greatest hits" collections, but
personally I perfer the context of an LP.


The Jam are a great band and influenced
quite a few early 80s American bands
and continue to influnce quite a few
I'm sure.  I can't recommend them higly enough.

Paul Weller, leader of the Jam, went
on to do some psuedo-coctail-jazz
musak with the Style Council (not a big
fan of this phase of his career), and 
is now back in  great form with a 70s-Traffic-Stevie Winwood
influenced sound on his last two solo LPs: "Wild Wood"
and recently-released "Stanley Road" (Winwood
actually contributes keyboards on a couple of tracks on
this LP) 
These LPs contain some great guitar playing
and all-around great musicianship coupled with
mature lyrics that overshadow just about
anything on the pop music scene these days.
Go get 'em!

happy listening,
-Brendon



At 10:54 PM 1/9/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Someone mentioned the Jam covering two Who songs and I saw the CD which 
>contains both in a store today, but:
>
>who the hell are the Jam?  What kind of music do they play, and is the CD 
>worth $10?
>
>--LP.
>
>
=====================================================
                                    Brendon Macaraeg
               http://www.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~brendonm 
   "Paranoia is often an extreme hightened awareness"