Recently my daughter bought me the DVD of About the Young Idea, the 2015 film about The Jam. I watched it this week, having completely missed it when it came out. Now I think of it I remember the exhibition at the same time. What an enjoyable hour and a half it was, and most of all it made me realise there's none of their music that I've heard which I don't like. I've had the Compact Snap hits compilation for ages and picked up Setting Sons on iTunes somewhere along the way.
But watching and listening, and looking back now I realise how influential they were, before the Smiths, before the Stone Roses, before Britpop. And having been in my teens when it was happening I just enjoyed what I heard, without fully appreciating the musicianship, songwriting, melding of so many influences into something unique. And their youth! Weller was 19 when they broke in 1977, Foxton and Buckler about 22. And they'd already been playing together three years. The live footage looked electric; I'll bet a fair few OTFers saw them.
The end was early and sudden, and clearly neither Foxton, or especially Buckler have got over it and the fact none of them appear together in the contemporary footage stands out like a sore thumb. Weller is and was clearly very driven and ambitious, and whilst I consider nothing he's done since holds a candle to The Jam, who's to say they would have kept the standard up if they'd stayed together? What we got was what we got.
Suffice it to say I now have a pressing need to fill all the gaps in the collection, and picked up In The City and The Gift today, simply because they were what the shop had.
A personal Top 5 to finish (pending those I've yet to hear):
1. Town Called Malice
2. In The City
3. That's Entertainment
4. English Rose
5. Wasteland
But watching and listening, and looking back now I realise how influential they were, before the Smiths, before the Stone Roses, before Britpop. And having been in my teens when it was happening I just enjoyed what I heard, without fully appreciating the musicianship, songwriting, melding of so many influences into something unique. And their youth! Weller was 19 when they broke in 1977, Foxton and Buckler about 22. And they'd already been playing together three years. The live footage looked electric; I'll bet a fair few OTFers saw them.
The end was early and sudden, and clearly neither Foxton, or especially Buckler have got over it and the fact none of them appear together in the contemporary footage stands out like a sore thumb. Weller is and was clearly very driven and ambitious, and whilst I consider nothing he's done since holds a candle to The Jam, who's to say they would have kept the standard up if they'd stayed together? What we got was what we got.
Suffice it to say I now have a pressing need to fill all the gaps in the collection, and picked up In The City and The Gift today, simply because they were what the shop had.
A personal Top 5 to finish (pending those I've yet to hear):
1. Town Called Malice
2. In The City
3. That's Entertainment
4. English Rose
5. Wasteland
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