•
Rating: The early Jam of “In The City” (1977) were a Mod aesthetic group influenced by Punk, still searching for a true attitude. “In The City” sounded raw, although great tracks were not lacking. By the time they released the masterpiece “All Mod Cons,” the winds of austerity from across the Channel cast a dark shadow over the band, a common trait of the entire post-punk scene.
The Jam's last masterpiece is "Sound Affects" (1980), with a more delightfully easy and refined sound compared to three years earlier, an album endowed with an almost infinite range of colors and timbres. Weller’s poetic sarcasm does the rest, infusing the eleven tracks with eruptive creative urgency. It must be said that Weller preferred the cockiness of the punk to the Kinks and the my generation of the Who; nevertheless, the smell of post-punk in these 35 minutes is sharper than anything else. “Pretty Green” is pneumatic and fractured Power pop, “Monday” creates a special feeling with the surroundings and the listener thanks to the repetitive verse Oh baby I'm dreaming of Monday, Oh baby will I see you again
. The piece's slightly accentuated dramatic nuances are intriguing and prompt you to play it on repeat 3 or 4 or 10 times. The seductive throb of "But I'm Different Now", with Weller’s guitar more concise than ever and the always precise and careful instrumental interventions demonstrate the brilliance and exquisite geometry of this dazzling pace. The most heart-pounding moment comes with “Set The House Ablaze”. Let us pause for a few more lines before this monument: kneel before its immense guitar opening, the initial martiality implodes in the contagious la-las and the disturbing whistles under the powerful advance of the drums, then finding the indispensable way out in the chorus, after which it plunges into the oppressive gloom of the finale where everything revs up and calls upon chaos so much that Weller's historic composure wavers, and in a rush of emotional tension, he screams "La-la-la" completely and deleteriously hallucinated forever for the ages until the train whistles of the after-bomb silence everything: MARASMA.
And with this, the grandiose opening quartet of the album concludes. “Start" steals the riff from the Beatles' "Taxman" and smashes it on a syncopated guitar, glorifying itself in the contrast between the rhythm section's funk grit and the trio's echoing beat vocal delicacies. Memorable “That’s Entertainment”, unfolded on a soft bed of acoustic guitar. Between a vibrant Mod anthem like “Boy About Town” and an instant classic like “Dream Time”, we realize the stunning sonic cleanup the work is endowed with, a dizzying cleanliness of sound interlocks, like in the small luminous marvel of “The Man In The Corner Shop”, and that memorable “lalalalala” so full of sweet nostalgia that makes it the most crystalline melody of the trio's career. The edgy “Scrapt Away” closes the album, all played on nervous and nagging rhythm, the rhythm section takes everything away doing something very simple and at the same time immense: they hold the tempo.
This album so lacquered and modernist has only the clothing of the revival fashion, made of vintage white shirts with wide-collar Burberry’s, silk ties Resikeio, three-button Bill Blass jackets, six-button double-breasted Christian Dior suits, and perforated leather lace-up shoes Allen-Admonds.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Monday (03:02)
Rainclouds came and stole my thunder -
Left me barren like a desert
But a sunshine girl like you
It's worth going through -
I will never be embarrassed about love again -
Tortured winds that blew me over -
When I start to think that I'm something special
They tell me that I'm not -
And they're right and I'm glad and I'm not -
I will never be embarrassed about that again.
Oh baby I'm dreaming of Monday,
Oh baby will I see you again
Oh baby I'm dreaming of Monday.
03 But I'm Different Now (01:52)
Picked you up and let you down and
I never said a word -
But I'm different now and I'm glad that you're my girl
Mess you 'round and upset you I
hurt you most of all -
But I'm different now and I'm glad that you're my girl
Fun lasts for seconds, love lasts for days but
But you can't have both -
And I'm different now but I'm glad that you're my girl
Because I know I done some things
That I should never have done
But I'm different now and I'm glad that you're my girl
05 Start! (02:33)
It's not important for you to know my name -
Nor I to know yours
If we communicate for two minutes only
It will be enough
For knowing that someone in this world
Feels as desperate as me -
And what you give is what you get.
It doesn't matter if we never meet again,
What we have said will always remain.
If we get through for two minutes only,
It will be a start!
For knowing that someone in this life,
Loves with a passion called hate
And what you give is what you get.
If I never ever see you -
If I never ever see you -
If I never ever see you - again.
And what you give is what you get!
06 That's Entertainment (03:38)
A police car and a screaming siren
Pneumatic drill and ripped up concrete
A baby wailing and a stray dog howling
The screech of brakes and lamplights blinking
That's entertainment
That's entertainment
A smash of glass and the rumble of boots
An electric train and a ripped up phone booth
Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tom cat
Lights going out and a kick in the balls
I say that's entertainment
That's entertainment
Days of speed and slow-time mondays
Pissing down with rain on a boring Wednesday
Watching the news and not eating your tea
A freezing cold flat with damp on the walls
I say that's entertainment
That's entertainment
Waking up at 6 a.m. on a cool warm morning
Opening the window and breathing in petrol
An amateur band rehearsing in a nearby yard
Watching the telly and thinking 'bout your holidays
That's entertainment
That's entertainment
Waking up from bad dreams and smoking cigarettes
Cuddling a warm girl and smelling stale perfume
A hot summer's day and sticky black tarmac
Feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were far away
That's entertainment
That's entertainment
Two lovers kissing at the scream of midnight
Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude
Getting a cab and travelling on buses
Reading the grafitti about slashed seat affairs
That's entertainment
That's entertainment
Loading comments slowly
