Customer Reviews

The Jam - Greatest Hits

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During the punk movement of the late-70's and early-80's, bands such as the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and especially the Clash had gained commercial success and loads of critical acclaim for their stripped down approach to music. In Britain, this movement was even larger with a band called the Jam leading the charge along with the Clash. Sadly, while the Clash have gained legendary status in the U.S. and even have their songs endorsing products for major companies, the Jam have remained unknown here unless you watch Alternative Nation on VH1 Classic.

The Jam's Greatest Hits shows a band that could be just as angry and focused as the Clash and having tons more musicianship than either the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. It also shows the exceptional songwriting skills of Paul Weller. The track listing is chronological showing the band maturing from a straight ahead punk band to a band which could jump between several genres and still write excellent songs. The opening tracks "In the City", "All Around the World", "The Modern World", and "News of the World" are energetic punk songs with tight musicianship and great backing vocals. The track "David Watts", originally done by the Kinks, is one of the few cases where the cover is actually better than the original. After these tracks you see the growth of Weller's songwriting. Tracks such as "Strange Town", "Going Underground", and "When You're Young" retained the energy of their earlier efforts but were more melodic offering a prelude to the punk-pop which would dominate the charts in Britain and the U.S. in the 90's. The songs "Eton Rifles" and "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" showcase Weller's excellent lyrics which often spoke of British social issues. The acoustic "That's Entertainment" is arguably their best song sporting excellent harmonies and simple yet memorable melodies. The diversity continues with the snappy horns in "Absolute Beginners" and the Motown sound of "Town Called Malice." The track "Precious" is an excellent funk song with a repetitive bass line and Weller's slashing guitar work. "Just Who Is The 5-Clock Hero" shows the band branching into ska while the ballad "The Bitterest Pill" and "Beat Surrender" are excellent pop songs that effectively closed the band's career. Other great songs here are the Beatles-influenced "Start" and the gloomy "Funeral Pyre" with its rockabilly guitar and Rick Buckler's hyperactive drumming. What's worth noting is that while both the Jam and the Clash both bounced among several genres throughout their short careers, the Clash's results, while often good, weren't nearly as consistent as the Jam. This is an outstanding collection of a band which never received its due in America. Highly recommended.

The Jam get my vote as best UK band of the late '70s and early '80s. Like Elvis Costello and the Attractions, they managed to combine incendiary playing with truly memorable melodies, leaving behind a marvelous fusion of '60s British pop, punk, new wave and later, soul, that has aged extremely well.

Weller's growth as a songwriter and even as a singer can be traced through this CD, which appears to be the equivalent of the album Snap! released here in the 1980s. While Weller is an original, the influence of celebrated predecessors Pete Townshend (down to the Rickenbacker and Union Jack) and Ray Davies (a thoroughly English writer), are evident. You even get some Revolver-era Beatles (complete with granny shades)and American soul thrown in for your money. With songs in his arsenal like 'Down In The Tube Station At Midnight', 'The Eton Rifles', 'Going Underground' 'Dreams Of Children', 'That's Entertainment', 'Man In The Corner Shop' and 'Town Called Malice', to name just a few, Weller deserves a place in any list of the best British songwriters. It probably helped that he had a disintegrating Britain under Thatcher to inspire him, though he did enrage plenty of followers with some confused musings on life under the execrable Iron Lady. Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler provide a tight and punchy rhythm section for Weller's furious guitar work and powerful singing, and the band rarely sound anything less than exciting. Best of all, the explosive playing cannot hide Weller's unerring ear for a melody.

While its generally wise to steer clear of 'greatest hits' packages - a particularly incongruous title in this instance - this CD is packed with so many superb songs it's hard to go past. Highly recommended.

As cocky and short-sighted as Oasis with twice the energy, the Jam was completely ignored in the USA. That's a shame, because America missed out on one of the best short careers in Rock.

Their early career was hobbled by fairly blatent attempts to recreate the first 2 or 3 Who LPs, but when they hit their stride the Jam was hard to top. On this Greatest Hits package, the change begins with "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight," and carries right through a series of fantastic singles that raced up and down the British charts: "The Eton Rifles," "Start!," "That's Entertainment," and "Going Underground," possibly the greatest Pop/Rock single never heard by most Americans.

Latter-day Jam dipped a little too heavily into blue-eyed soul and French pop for my taste, but the representative singles here--especially "The Bitterest Pill" and "Beat Surrender"--are still better than most of what you heard on American radio at the time.

Was the Jam a Who knock-off or the second coming of Mod? And does it make any difference? Debate that if you want, but enjoy the music.

Just as the Kinks get lost behind the Beatles Stones and Who and Animals [and Yardbirds, for all you hep cats] when one talks about the British Invasion, the Jam get lost behind the Ramones, Pistols and Clash when one mentions punk.

Bono once said that seeing the Jam in Dublin, seeing and hearing Paul Weller ripping into that Rickenbacher 12 string is what started him on the idea of a band. Yes, the Clash were "the only band that mattered" but the Jam were just as important to the punk movement as the "garage band" simplicity of the Who was to the early Mods.

Kicking off with a ferocious blast like In the City [think the venom of Elvis Costello kicking of with Welcome to the Working Week] to The Modern World to the Kinks cover David Watts and the tales of the scary subway, Down in the Tube Station at Midnight and the driving, Beatles [Good Morning, Good Morning] of the new kid in town, Strange Town, the Jam run full throttle at you RIGHT UP TO Paul Weller embracing funk and soul [the same way the Clash embrced Raggae and rap] starting with Start! [so like XTC!], the beautiful, That's Entertainment, the super funky Absolute Beginers, Town Called Malice anf the closer Beat Surrender.

And like the Clash, the lasted five years, said their piece and were gone.

If there is a complaint, it is the missing B Side "Buterfly Collector" and the sound is thin at times, often leaning on the treble.. maybe this is a problem with being a three piece, perhaps this was/is corrected on later remasters. But if you're looking for the next band to fill in your "original punk singles I have lost" section, try this.

Thanks to the musical genius of Paul Weller, The Jam progressed and hit the peak of many different yet strangely intertwined musical genres. The open tracks(ie "In The City", "Going Underground") are hard edge punk. As the album progresses to tracks like "A Town Called Malice" and finally "The Bitterest Pill" The Jam had evolved into a full fledged "blue eyed soul " band, a style Weller carries on into his next project The Style Council. The Jam was truly one of punks greatest and yet strangely most underrecognized bands, and as they and time both moved on, well everything Paul Weller touches seems to turn gold.

The Jam...what a magnificent band! Poetic, political, and altogether too much for America to comprehend. Americans: this is the greatest music that you've never heard. From the punky "In The City" to the groove-filled "Town Called Malice", this is a set of amazing tunes, none less than wonderful. One obviously can argue about whether "Precious" and "Just Who Is The Five O'Clock Hero" are on this collection rather than "Man In The Corner Shop" (one of the Jam's five finest songs ever) and "Carnation"...but look at the title, this is "Greatest Hits", not "Best of..." No one disc is going to neatly sum up the Jam, but this one does as good a job as possible, and is recommended (along with the more-heavily-B-sided "Collection" which neatly complements this set) for absolute beginners to the Jam legacy.

FIRST HEARD 'THATS ENTERTAINMENT' AS A TRAILER TO PREMIER FOOTBALL ON BBC WHILE LIVING IN LONDON AND HAVE BEEN HOOKED EVER SINCE. PAUL WELLER SHOWS WHAT A GREAT ARTIST HE IS.

The Jam were such a huge phenomenon in the UK in the late 70s and early 80s, yet such a colossal bust in America, that I felt compelled to acquire this CD and try to figure out why. As a life-long Who fan and someone who has been fascinated by the Mod subculture since first seeing the film adaptation of "Quadrophenia," I admit that I also thought this CD would be right up my alley.

However, in his Jam days, Paul Weller wrote almost exclusively to the British experience, and he never compromised in his ironic (sometimes acerbic) approach, even deliberately singing in his at-times-unintelligible, working-class-Brit accent. All of that, and the fact that some of his Jam-era songs--even some of the hits--lack any discernible hooks or catchy rhymes, made it inevitable that they would never get far in America.

Nonetheless, the Jam did produce some marvelous tunes, especially "Going Underground," "All Around the World," "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" (check out that bass riff), "That's Entertainment," and "Town Called Malice." Listening to those cuts now, it's easy to see why the youth of Britain glommed onto them and made them their own.

Lets face it the jam were one of englands all time greatest bands. And this compallation of all their best hits demonstrates why. From the brilliant "In the City" right through to the faboulous final single "beat surrender". The jam were a band who played with "fire and skill". Listen to this - and you will understand the meaning of style and class!!

Out of the British punk movement came one band that had the R&B roots of the early Rolling Stones, Kinks and The Who, with the understanding of music to mature as a band and have a string of hits without compromising their integrity.

You may not have heard of The Jam back in the 1970s unless you astutely followed the British scene. The wisdom of the U.S. record company was for the band - after a brief and unsuccessful live dates in the U.S. - to open in arenas for Blue Oyster Cult.

What a way to destroy a group exploring the roots of rock-n-roll, as the fans in the stands were eagerly awaiting a drummer to put a Godzilla mask on his head and pound out a senseless drum solo. The Jam never recovered from the initial poor marketing here, while becoming one of the greatest groups ever in the UK.

The greatest hits package does not dwell on one period of the band's music, so you can follow the path as a trio to the bolstering of the sound with horns and neat production techniques from 1977 to 1982. Drummer Rick Buckler and bassist Bruce Foxton demonstrate energy usually reserved for live shows with initial hits In The City, The Modern World and David Watts.

But it's Paul Weller who has center-stage, and he shows his production genius in the studio with Going Underground, Start! and a Town Called Malice.

The band saved some of its best music for last with the classic The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow) and the maturation of its sound with Beat Surrender.

The Jam dominated the UK charts while building a small but hardcore following in the U.S. Greatest Hits serves as the best example on what made the band essential listening then and still influential today.