Customer Reviews

Sound Affects

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It's amazing to find this album out of print in the US. The Jam's fifth (and penultimate) studio album, is a much more fitting swansong than the album that would follow (1982's "The Gift"). Weller and company return to the muscular, yet polished, mod-fed pop of "All Mod Cons," while continuing to stretch lyrically and intellectually.

As on "All Mod Cons," Weller explores elements of his life and environment, but two years further along his lyrics take a more abstract and poetic approach. Brilliant songs like "Man in the Corner Shop" meditate on class envy through a linked series of vignettes, while "That's Entertainment" brings the world's ills to the foreground with its scathing sarcasm.

Musically the band is as sharp as they got. The energy of their earliest works is channeled in a way that makes the rage simmer just on the edge of boiling, rather than exploding. The result is a more fervent and sustained backing for Weller's singing. Think of Revolver-era Beatles minus the psychedelic excess and plus the introspection of their White Album lyrics.

While other Jam LPs hit brilliant peaks here and there, "Sound Affects" sustains their genius from start to finish.

In The City introduced The Jam as a brash young hipster band with one foot in the UK punk underground and the other in America's R&B past. Then came This Is The Modern World, a rushed attempt at cash-in success that failed. Then All Mod Cons, a typical Jam album, solid if unspectacular. Setting Sons, the pseudo-concept album followed with its poppy sounds and glossy production. Then, the skies parted, and Sound Affects was bestowed upon the world, and everything was perfect.

Weller's poetic/sarcastic wit combine with edgy but poppy tunes to really make this The Jam's standout album. I don't believe there is a bad song on the album, and at least 3 songs (Pretty Green, That's Entertainment, & Man In The Corner Shop) rank among the best they've ever done. It's a top-notch album that deserves a lot more notoriety than it receives. Though the sad truth is that it was all downhill for The Jam after this one.

And though I can't say they were better than The Clash (The Only Band That Matters, even after all these years) The Jam were better than most. This CD proves it. An undisputed classic.

Ok this was completely breat-taking back when it came out. The Jam had progressed musically in a way that was almost unprecedented in all of rock's history. Going from simple punk rock beginnings (or pub rock actually) to this masterpiece was quite an incredible achievement. Sonically and melodically it is also the most accomplished record of the New Wave era (even if now many would disagree on calling it that but back then all post-punk bands were labelled so). Unfortunately the Jam would somehow disappoint with their later recordings and never would fill out the promise heard here. They could have become the best rock group ever. However Paul Weller chose to explore more r'n'b or jazz paths later on...with in my opinion less success. Boy about town, that's entertainment, are simply fantastic songs. My favourite remains the powerful Pretty Green.

These are the words of Jam leader Paul Weller. While Sound Affects is not my personal favorite, he clearly has good taste in his own music. Sound Affects was the third in a trio of brilliant, pun-titled records by The Jam. (It was also their first collection of all original material.) The #1 double A-side "Going Undergroud/The Dreams of Children" preceded the record's release, and served as a perfect appetizer for the forthcoming LP. Their fifth record was their most pop-oriented album, including not only 2 hit singles, but a handful of other pop numbers as well. Of course, Weller was not about to leave his more constructively cynical side behind, so there are also several less sunny tracks. But all of the songs are strong and catchy, powered by sharp experimental production and deliberately more poetic lyrics.

Sound Affects opens with the buoyant "Pretty Green", which features Bruce Foxton's always superb thumping bass lines, and "Monday", which offers the album's first taste of pleasantly faint psychedelia. The punky pop ditty "But I'm Different Now" picks up the pace, breezing by in less than 2 minutes. Horns adorn "Boy About Town", another snappy 2-minute number, but the most impressive of these non-single pop songs is "Man in the Corner Shop". This track shows that Weller was still in Ray Davies-mode, depicting how 3 classes of people interact with each other on a daily basis, with the factory worker envying the shopkeeper, who in turns envies the factory owner. They come together only on Sundays, when all of them kneel before God as - of course - equals (right?).

The songs that form the core of the record are "Start!" and "That's Entertainment". The former, which was their second #1 single in a row, should sound familiar even to those who have never heard it (Weller once claimed, perhaps a bit disingenuously, that he was thinking more of James Brown than the obvious source). "That's Entertainment" reached only #21 in the UK, but this was as an import: it wasn't even released in Britain as a single. This was a testament to the band's enormous popularity at the time, and the song has become perhaps the band's most timeless cut. The lines in this song are one picture-perfect image after another, depicted vividly by Weller's impeccable British English. By this time, Weller had earned his place among those who had inspired him (Davies, Townshend, Lennon), and was well on his way to inspiring the next generation of British songwriters. (Even Morrissey did a cover of "That's Entertainment", albeit a significantly altered one.)

Interspersed among these pop songs are slices of Weller's brand of healthy cynicism, captured best in the lyrics to "Dream Time": "Their hate comes in frozen packs bought in a supermarket". Note how this songs begins with a winding, backward intro, a trick previously heard on "The Dreams of Children". There is also the dark, dissonant "Set the House Ablaze", with its creepy whistling and main riff that was clearly stolen by Bloc Party for some song that I once heard playing in a record store (I don't know the title). The largely instrumental "Music For the Last Couple" highlights the wonderful interplay among Weller, Foxton, and Buckler, as does the confrontational closer "Scrape Away".

Over the course of their remarkable 5-year recording career, The Jam never stood still or rested on its laurels. Paul Weller was a young man in a hurry, and he took his band through punk, rock, pop, and R&B at a sweeping pace. The Jam never attained the gravitas of contemporaries The Clash, but they were the most popular English band of the punk era. Albums like Sound Affects demonstrated that The Jam had the pop smarts to afford them such commerical success, and enough attitude, intelligence, and talent to make them one of the truly greatest British bands ever. After five years of being a fan, it is still refreshing to reminded of their greatness each time I delve into their records anew. But still, I won't hold my breath that any of their albums will appear on a Rolling Stone or VH-1 countdown any time soon.

This album is good all-around. Each song has its own identity (that means they're all good). "That's Entertainment" one of the singles from this album and it's a great one. Other songs, like "Dreaming of Monday", all have their own feel to them. Great songwriting effort from Paul Weller. This is their last album (I think), and from here Weller went on to form the Style Council.

like the buzzcocks, the jam blended geek-love and politics in the most perfect of ways, often using one as a metaphor for the other. out of all the records that i am rambling on about, this is the one i'll choose to actually print lyrics from (because everytime i hear the song, i think of bush), they are from the last verse of "set the house ablaze": "it is called indoctrination, and it happens on all levels, but it has nothing to do with equality, it has nothing to do with democracy, and though it professes to, it has nothing to do with humanity, it is cold, hard and mechanical." and it gets better! "start!" (one of the only song titles deserving of the exclamation mark) which describes exactly what listening to the jam is like: "if we get through for only two minutes only, it will be a start." a brilliant music marketing slogan if i ever heard one. considering that "start!" is the literal start of the record, the first two minutes represents the jam at their best, a very noble start, so i let them on for longer than two minutes. eventually, i get to the one song i know and one of my favorite bitter lines ever penned: "feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were faraway." on that note... trust me, this is a great place to start.

The Jam's Sound Affects is the band's fifth album as well as their most successful. Quite simply, this is a near perfect release where everything works, flawlessly. The album is also very well produced as Bruce Foxton's bass is provided equal footing with Paul Weller's guitar and Rick Buckler's drums. It is a melting pot of moods and styles as aggression and working class lyrics are on level with great hooks, strong melodies, and a dose of R&B. The opener "Pretty Green" is both catchy and aggressive, carried by Foxton's bassline while "Monday" is a beautiful melodic love song with great harmonies. "But I'm Different Now" is a joyous power pop song that features breaks you don't hear coming while "Set The House Ablaze" recalls the band's fiery punk roots. The most popular tracks follow with the Beatles inspired "Start" and the excellent acoustic track "That's Entertainment", whose lyrics paint a picture of England. The eclecticism continues as "Boy About Town" is more great power pop with splashes of horns and "Dream Time" starts out psychedelic before becoming a Who-like rocker. "Music for the Last Couple" is another great track that would have worked even without its sparse lyrics. Rounding out the album is the sweet melodic "Man in the Corner Shop" and the harsh and gripping "Scrape Away." All told, there is not even a bad moment on Sound Affects. I would put this on par with the best work of The Beatles, The Who, The Clash, or The Police. It's that good. Highly recommended.

The Jam are one of the best and most under-rated bands in rock music history. They were big in the UK, but barely made a dent in the US. That may be due to the content of their songs, which was related to their homeland in the UK. I'm from California, but it didn't matter that they sang about the streets of England or the Tube. They got to me. This is probably my favorite Jam album because of epic songs such as "That's Entertainment" and "Man in the Corner Shop". I missed out on an opportunity to see the Jam in San Francisco in 1982 because I only had enough money to see one band, so I saw the Clash. I saw a Paul Weller show a few years ago and he did "That's Entertainment". It was great, but it would have been nice to have seen the show in 1982.

The Jam story comes to it's climax with the stupendous 'Sound Affects'. Taking some of the sparse furore of 'Setting Sons' and stripping it down even further, Weller concocted a modernist brew of transparency and minimalism that only just stays this side of suicidal experimentation.

Gone were the full-on arrangements of previous releases, here Weller fully took on board the zeitgeist of the so-called new-pop movement blazing across UK in the early 80's.
Important groups like The Sound, Clock DVA, Wild Swans, Crispy Ambulance and many others - essentially twisted agit-pop combo's - but as part of a mode of musical history, the UK has never been as creatively deluged before or since.

Weller assimilated all this new enthusiasm into the framework of 'Sound Affects', (and also the breathtaking 'Funeral Pyre' single) which in turn took The Jam away into the corners, away from the mainstream and the comfort zone of the Top Twenty. In a real sense, away from the numbers (!)

Luckily for him, his audience followed, in fact it increased; 'Start' was No.1 for weeks, closely followed by the fierce 'That's Entertainment' - one of Weller's most recognizable songs -at the top end of the hit parade.
'Monday' is an astonishing song, melancholy and abrupt.
Another of Weller's finest moments, 'Man in the Corner Shop' is a plaintive voice against individualism; the battle cry of Margaret Thatcher's incoming Tory Government.

Weller hated the bones of Thatcherism, and his antagonism toward it began to sow the seeds of his 80's self-destruction, fatally cultivated by his involvement with torpid political turkeys like the SWP and Red Wedge.
'Sound Affects' is Weller's last truly great work.

The Jam get my vote as best UK band of the late '70s and early '80s (sorry, Clash fans.) 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 and even soul that has aged extremely well. 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) thrown in for your money.

Weller deserves a place in any list of the best British songwriters, and he is in full bloom here. 'Start!', a blatant remake of 'Taxman' (Weller was heavily into Revolver at the time), is memorable, while 'That's Entertainment' and the magnificent 'Man In The Corner Shop' are among his best compositions.

Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler provide a tight and punchy rhythm section for Weller's furious guitar work and powerful singing, and, as ever, the band rarely sound anything less than exciting. Best of all, the explosive playing cannot hide Weller's unerring ear for a melody. Out of print in the States? Maybe it's just too English.