Your Favourite album by The Jam

All Mod Cons, especially the Mobile Fidelity 2-fer with Sound Affects. So much better sounding than my original Polydor US CD of the former!

 

They were a great singles band, but then songs like "Carnation," "Monday," "Away from the Numbers," "Life from a Window," "Man in the Corner Shop," and "Ghosts" aren't singles. Sadly, all their albums have at least one or more blatant filler track, which I always found to be a bit of a shame.

 

Setting Sons for me....sorry but there is no filler on that one....Heatwave is awesome with that piano.
I remember buying the LP from the Great Northern Mall in North Olmstead Ohio in 1979...I even remember the jacket I had on that day and it was raining. The first three songs on Side One ( Side Two in the UK) just blew me away. I still listen to it all the time. My favorite album from the 1970s.

 

It would have to be a tie between In The City, All Mod Cons, Setting Sons and Sound Effects, for me. Then The Gift and This Is The Modern World (I like that album a lot and always have - takes a bit more 'effort' than some, but it's worth it IMO. I don't even like saying it's the least good.)

So much of Setting Sons really kicks and I enjoy the version of Heatwave but maybe surprisingly to some, I find Little Boy Soldiers a bit of a let- down. Sorry, but The Jam doing a 'suite' a-la The Who's A Quick One is a bit too contrived for me. I don't hate it, I just feel they're trying to cram too much into a track that feels much longer than it actually is. Sound Effects has about my favourite track in Start and That's Entertainment isn't too far behind, though it's been played over the years so much, it doesn't impact on me as much as it once did. I remember how cool it was, knowing you could only buy it on a German import single and it still got a very good chart placing. A very similar album to SS, in many ways, I think - some of Weller's very best writing and the band are on top form - even more than on All Mod Cons although that has in the main, better songs still. English Rose and Tubestation - what a contrast, but real highpoints for me, along with A-Bomb in Wardour Street.

But In The City was either the first LP I ever bought and not just for nostalgic reasons, but the way they attack some of the covers on there (Slow Down is pure punk aggression and I love the guitars and drumming on it) with Sounds Of The Street, Art School, the title track and Bricks And Mortar and others (even the Batman theme ) just about swings it for me. Even the 'lesser' songs on here, on these their playing it so tight together - it's always knocked me out.

 

VERY,VERY nice sounding disc.

 

Like several other posters on this thread, Snap! is my favorite Jam album. It stands on its own as an album in part because the Jam released many non-album tracks on singles and EPs; twelve of its 29 tracks are not on album. Another reason Snap! stands as an individual work is that the singles (and some of their b-sides) demonstrate vividly the Jam's (i.e., Paul Weller) development from callow punk to accomplished power-pop to soul-based rock.

 

I voted for The Gift but it could have been anything from All Mod Cons onwards really.

 

This is the modern world. I have had this record since I was a teenager and I love every track on the album.

John

 

Winter bump

 

"All Mod Cons" still holds up very well with time.
Several years ago, I started buying up all the compilations I could find. Those injection moulded singles don't hold up well with time!
(Does anybody know what the point of publishing alternate lyrics for "Strange Town" on the back of the single was?)

 

Not a studio album as such but, "Dig the new breed" is my favourite. I was in the last few years at school when this was released, Living the whole mod revival thing, Fishtail Parkers, etc!!

To me the rawness this album captures is immense, Granted in terms of been a true live album then it's not. I believe the tracks were at numerous different venues & produced together as if it was one full live gig. The album captures the band at its peak, And still to this day makes the hairs on my arms stand up.

 

The UK Polydor LP sounds silky and smooth, you must be speaking about a CD issue? I like the sounds of the mix, etc.
The Gift shows growth and maturity in a new way, and the songs are for sure there. But "very loud and nasty" is a complement for some artists' albums.

 

Sound Affects for me, with All Mod Cons second. No surprise to see those two leading the pack, since I think all the other ones are flawed in some obvious way. I'm interested to see that other people rate The Gift rather low as well. Some great stuff on that album, but it just doesn't hang together very well for me.

Setting Sons is almost a great album, but Weller didn't just abandon the album's initial concept, he gave it the two-fingered salute by adding that mediocre cover of 'Heatwave' at the end (as if to say, "see, I wasn't really making a concept album after all!") I'd say it sounds like a b-side, except that would be an insult to The Jam's b-sides at the time, which were things like 'The Butterfly Collector', 'Smithers-Jones' and 'Dreams of Children'. I made myself a 'rectified' Setting Sons that doesn't follow the original concept but does split the album into themed 'Childhood' and 'Adulthood' sides by adding a couple of singles tracks from the period:
A: Saturday's Kids / When You're Young / The Eton Rifles / Wasteland / Thick as Thieves
B: Little Boy Soldiers / Burning Sky / Smithers-Jones / Private Hell / Dreams of Children

'Dreams of Children' kind of sums up the album's theme of disillusionment, and ties up the album musically by echoing side one's closer. 'Girl on the Phone' is the only original album track that really doesn't fit into this concept, and I don't think it's as strong as the two single tracks I subbed in, so it's no great loss. There are some other nice coincidences that give the album a bit of structure, like the letter-writing conceit that links 'Burning Sky' and 'Little Boy Soldiers' and the way those two songs work as a kind of conversation, then the story of employment opened and closed by 'Burning Sky' and 'Smithers-Jones', and the way 'Private Hell' answers 'Smithers-Jones' rhetorical question "how's the wife at home?" (although neither song was part of the abandoned concept album). There's also a nice interpenetration of childhood and adulthood throughout the album, with narrators looking forward or looking back. Strip away the dross and distractions, and you can see Weller was on an amazing songwriting run during this period.

 

I just read your post after posting my very similar take on this album. Try out that sequence and see how you like it.

 

I have the US vinyl and although I wouldn't call it "loud and nasty," it's got an unpleasant, trebly echoic sound. I remember this being mentioned in reviews at the time. Maybe the UK pressings are different a la Get Happy!!

On the other hand, I always liked the way Sound Affects sounded on the US vinyl -- and that was loud and nasty in a good way.

 

Snap!

 

Snap!

 

Extras

 

Agreed completely, right down to the comparison to the Who's debut LP.

 

The others aren't primitive enough.

 

1. Setting Sons
2. Sound Effects
3. This is the modern world.

My most favorite album is Setting Sons. Great songs as Eton Rifles. Little Boy Soldier, Smither-J0nes, BurningSky etc.
In 1980 i studied in Groningen The Netherlands, the album Setting Sons was a year old, i played it a lot and their new album Sound Affects was just released in November.
The Jam played at 2 december a concert at the O0sterpoort in Groningen, hearing all my favorite songs of Settings Sons of live was fantastic.
The concert was incredible what a energy and commitment on stage and that with only 3 people on stage. Standing in this seething crowd was just great.

 

All Mod Cons - such a mature LP from someone so young.

 

"Modern World" was my first, but my favorite is "Sound Affects". "All Mod" & "Setting Sons" ranks up there, but there was something about "Sound Affects". I guess it was the "Revolver" vibe (my fave Beatles LP), so I could hear the influences. The only track that makes the LP flawed is the "Music for the last couple"...."Liza Radley" would have been better suited to replace that track.

Coincidentally enough, when the Jam were touring "The Gift", there was a record signing meet at Tower records in LA. I asked Paul what his favorite was, and he responded with "Sound Affects".

 

That's what I was getting at, I'm not that good at describing it, I just feel it...I don't like the sound of the record much.

 

I'm playing your version now, I'm not convinced about 'Dreams Of Children' being there as it post-dates the album by several months.

I'd ditch the orchestrated 'Smithers Jones' - which is horrible IMHO - in favour of the 'b' side version, if you hadn't already gone for that one.

The other great unheralded Weller songwriting binge was in the 1984/85 - he was throwing away some of his greatest songs as b-sides etc. ('Spin Drifting', 'When You Call Me' 'Piccadilly Trail', 'The Whole Point II', 'Spring Summer Autumn' etc etc) in favour of lesser politically-based songs.