Jam - All Mod Cons

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Free Music Notes for All Mod Cons

Free Music Review: Good flavour of late 70's punk pop
Hit: 5 Stars

This album is a blast of superb punk intelligence. Following the brief opening title track, we are led into one of the trio's best songs, "To Be Someone" - a statement from songwriter Paul Weller about the excesses of being a popstar. We lead straight into "Mr. Clean", with its classic guitar riff refusing to overpower the brilliance of Weller's lyrics, an attack on the British class system. We follow with a cover of the Kinks' classic "David Watts", which despite sounding brilliant, is probably the only song close to a throwaway on the album.

The album takes a brief mellow turn here, following with one of Weller's most poignant ballads, "English Rose". We head straight back into epic territory with the classic "In the Crowd", and just before we think the trio are getting soft on us, they blast us away with "Billy Hunt", yet another character in this marvellous album.

Following with a trio of gorgeous pop ballads, we end the album with a duo of songs that show the world that these guys can still rock hard, and make a masterpiece in the process. "'A' Bomb in Wardour Street" is what I consider the entree to the epic finale, "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight", arguably the Jam's best lyrical and musical offering ever released. What makes this song so amazing is how the lyrics have been written to fit the music and the music has been written to fit the lyrics simultaneously. We are left with a masterpiece that shows extraordinary power both lyrically and musically. The bass and guitar at the start sets the tension, and the tension is kept at a peak while Weller narrates a tail of bloody violence and fear into the mind of the listener. By the time it is over (with an extraordinary fade-out and fade-in remniscent of "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" by The Smiths), we are left breathless, and gasping for more. Unfortunately this is where the album decides to end.

Many consider "Sound Affects" to be The Jam's best album. I find that album terribly overrated, and how anybody can possibly rate it above this one is beyond me. This is the trio at their peak, musically and lyrically. And in the process they released one of the greatest albums ever made.

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