Favourite Jam singles

My picks match yours exactly!

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

My top 5 too, with David Watts next choice I'd I had one.

 

Since this seems to be as good a thread as any, please pardon me as I indulge myself...
These are 2 of my favorite Jam picture sleeves:

 

I could never believe that "Vic Coppersmith-Heaven" was an actual name, I thought they must have made that up...

Great B-sides they had ....

 

Mine would have been from Woolworth's - so that's not as odd as it may seem! I'm going to keep searching on the web... it has to be somewhere or other.

 

Beat Surrender.



So...what went wrong with this band. Why aren't they up there with the Who and Kinks?

 

Depends who you ask.

For me, they are up there with those bands.

 

I went with
Strange Town
Dreams of Children
and the following for great the great B-sides
Just Who Is The 5 O'clock hero (The Great Depression)
Bitterest Pill (Pity Poor Alfie)
Beat Surrender (for all the other tracks on the EP)

 

News of the World
Strange Town
That's Entertainment
Town Called Malice
Beat Surrender

 

They split at their peak, rather than carrying on for 20 , 30 , 40 years past it.....and becoming a complete joke..

(and I say that as a big fan of Who and Kinks)

 

In The City
The Modern World
Strange Town
Going Underground
That's Entertainment

Could almost throw a dart to pick five songs. Love 'em all.
Got to see them live in '78 opening for Blue Oyster Cult and Be Bop Deluxe.

 

Well, they were huge in the UK.
But, in the US, perhaps the lack of airplay is one reason they never took off = no hit singles = no airplay.
(It's a vicious circle.)

Maybe as most radio stations became more "formatted", they had limited play/air time to broadcast The Jam.
Well known UK bands such as The Who and The Kinks were firmly entrenched with their radio standards, such as My Generation, Lola, You Really Got Me, Baba O'Reilly (aka That Teenage Wasteland song), etc.

My left field guess is that the radio programmers would never bump those two, not to mention another British group: The Beatles!!!

I may be mistaken; but that's my pet theory.

 

My top four were easy. In order: Down in the Tube Station at Midnight, Dreams of Children, Going Underground, Start.

Picking a fifth was much harder. 'That's Entertainment' and 'Town Called Malice' are both classics, but I got totally burned out on both of those by incessant radio play throughout my teens (the only two Jam songs that were on high rotate in New Zealand, but they were totally inescapable). So I went with 'Precious', which seems to be tied for least popular. I just love they had the chutzpah to try and pull that kind of thing off at the height of their commercial success.

 

They are in my book. Actually ahead of the Who IMO.

 

News of the World
'A' Bomb in Wardour Street
Dreams of Children
Funeral Pyre
Precious

I guess my favorites aren't most people's favorites. I didn't even peek!

Also I don't think they toured much in the USA. A brief tour supporting their debut record snagged few followers, and opening for Blue Oyster Cult on their second USA tour in '78 couldn't help.
They were also a bit more aggressive in the early days, which may have turned off the radio programmers who were promoting bands like Blondie, The Police and Talking Heads as "punk".

 

Down In A Tube Station At Midnight
Eton Rifles
Going Underground
That's Entertainment
The Bitterest Pill

I have to say that "Going Underground" is one of my all time favorite songs by any band ever. The production, the lyrics, the sheer drive of it exhilarates me every single time I hear it. That song alone is better than the full output of many other bands.

 

I know the poster you mean! I had it too, and I'm sure it's in the attic somewhere.

If I get time this weekend, I'll try and dig it out.

As for favourite singles, I'd go with 'All Around The World', 'Strange Town', 'Funeral Pyre' and 'Absolute Beginners'.

Just noticed they're all non album singles, in the UK anyway.

If I had to go with just one, probably 'Strange Town'. Fantastic b-side, one of many.

 

It's from this photo session:

 

It also contains my favourite Weller lyric "The public wants what the public gets".

Always annoys me when covers bands and even recorded cover versions simply repeat "The public gets what the public wants" from earlier in the song, thus completely missing the point of what Weller was trying to say.

 

If you do have the poster and could put a snap of it in this thread - that would be incredible. But even if you can't, I hope it's still there and intact.

Nice to see all the people going for Strange Town; even before I knew what 'production' was, I was always knocked out by the whole sound collage of Weller's guitar overdubs (think similar, the multiple lead guitar overdubs at the fade out of Tubestation... there are other examples, but that will come straight to mind for a few people I recon.)

The Jam were originally known to me as a singles band - because so many caught my imagination very quickly and they were also great for putting out non-album bsides as well, of course. Buying a single of theirs was an event, for me.

 

That has a very similar look, yes - I knew it was from '79 or '80, not sure how though. Still looking for the actual one we had on our walls, but no luck as yet..

 

David Watts, Tube station, Strange town, Going underground, Absolute beginners.

I was lucky enough to see them on the All mod cons and Strange towns tours.

 

I could have picked them all, they're that good a quality run of singles, brilliant really.
I went with The Bitterest Pill, absolute classic....

 

In The City
Going Underground
That's Entertainment
Town Called Malice
Beat Surrender

 

This is impossible, but I've had a go. To this day, the drumming on Funeral Pyre makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. David Watts was the best Kinks cover ever, when I first heard it....The Bitterest Pill was a totally unexpected sublime ballad, but it's When Your Young which always remains my favourite Jam single. Perfect in every way, with the strings arrangement of Smithers Jones on the B side, and Paul's super cool Paisley shirt on the picture cover. What a band, and what a writer....