# Turn It Up! - The Jam



## Guest (Aug 30, 2018)

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_"Turn it up, turn it up, little bit higher, radio
Turn it up, that's enough, so you know it's got soul
Radio, radio turn it up..."
_- Van Morrison

The average length of the 45 rpm single is 3 minutes and 30 seconds...

If you can't say what needs to be said in 3 minutes and 30 seconds then it probably isn't worth saying...

"Turn It Up!" is a series about those classic tunes played on radio stations the world over that still live on over the airwaves of our memories and the artists who created them...

*The Jam*

"The Jam were an English mod revival/punk rock band during the 1970s and early 1980s, which formed in 1972 at Sheerwater Secondary School in Woking, in the county of Surrey.

While it shared the "angry young man" outlook and fast tempo of the contemporary mid-1970s' British Punk Rock movement, in contrast with it the band wore smartly tailored suits reminiscent of English pop-bands in the early 1960s, and incorporated mainstream 1960s rock and R&B influences into its sound, particularly from The Who's work of that period, and also drew influence from the work of The Kinks and the music of American Motown. This placed the act at the forefront of the 1970s/1980s nascent Mod Revival movement.

The band released 18 consecutive Top 40 singles in the United Kingdom, from their debut in 1977 to their break-up in December 1982, including four number one hits.

As of 2007, "That's Entertainment" and "Just Who Is the 5 O'Clock Hero?" remained the best-selling import singles of all time in the UK. They released one live album and six studio albums, the last of which, "The Gift", hit number one on the UK Albums Chart. When the group disbanded in 1982, their first 15 singles were re-released and all placed within the top 100.

The band drew upon a variety of stylistic influences over the course of their career, including 1960s beat music, soul, rhythm and blues and psychedelic rock, as well as 1970s punk and new wave.

The trio were known for their melodic pop songs, their distinctly English flavour and their mod image. The band launched the career of Paul Weller, who went on to form The Style Council and later had a successful solo career. Weller wrote and sang most of The Jam's original compositions, and he played lead guitar, using a Rickenbacker 330.

To universal surprise, on 30 October 1982 Weller announced his intention to the disband The Jam after a short concert tour of the UK had been completed. They also made their final appearances on Top of the Pops and The Tube to promote "Beat Surrender". The tour included five consecutive nights at the Wembley Arena, all of which sold out within twenty minutes of tickets becoming available. The last date on the original itinerary had been scheduled for 10 December 1982 at Guildford Civic Hall, close to the band's hometown of Woking. However, due to ticket demand, an additional date was added at the Brighton Conference Centre on 11 December 1982 for their last performance.

The decision to split was solely Weller's. Explaining at the time that he disliked the idea of continuing for as long as possible simply because they were successful, he later told the Daily Mirror in advance of a 2015 Sky documentary on the band, "I wanted to end it to see what else I was capable of, and I'm still sure we stopped at the right time. I'm proud of what we did but I didn't want to dilute it, or for us to get embarrassing by trying to go on forever. We finished at our peak. I think we had achieved all we wanted or needed to, both commercially and artistically."

Weller's decision to move on, announced by his father, the band's manager, at an extraordinary band meeting in the summer of 1982, "came as a shock" to Buckler and Foxton, who wanted to keep the band together. Buckler told the Woking News and Mail in 2012: "It was like we were going to be driving over a cliff at the end of the year, and you keep thinking 'Well, maybe he'll change his mind''." Both Buckler and Foxton described the experience as bitter, but in later years both expressed understanding, if not complete acceptance.

Following the split, Foxton did not speak to Weller for over 20 years, and Buckler said in 2015 that he still had not spoken to Weller since, despite repeated attempts by Buckler and Foxton in 1983 and 1984 to meet and talk.

As the farewell tour neared its end, Polydor released a live album titled "Dig the New Breed", a collection of songs from various concert performances over the band's five-year career which, while commercially successful, met with mixed reviews. The month after the final concert in Brighton, Polydor predictably re-released all sixteen of the band's singles, nine of which re-entered the UK charts on 22 January 1983.

In a 2006 interview with BBC Radio 6 Music, Weller stated that a reunion of The Jam would "never, ever happen", and that reformations are "sad". He said "Me and my children would have to be destitute and starving in the gutter before I'd even consider that, and I don't think that'll happen anyway ... The Jam's music still means something to people and a lot of that's because we stopped at the right time, it didn't go on and become embarrassing.""

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jam

Peak UK Singles chart position in parentheses -

"*In The City*" - 1977 - (# 40) -






"*All Around The World*" - 1977 - (# 13) -





 - (Live video)

"*The Modern World*" - 1977 - (# 36) -






"*News of the World*" - 1978 - (# 27) -





 - (Live video)

"*David Watts*" - 1978 - (A-Side) - (# 25) -





 - (Live video)

"*"'A' Bomb in Wardour Street"* " - 1978 - (B-Side) - (# 25) -





 - (Live video)

"*Down in the Tube Station at Midnight*" - 1978 - (# 15) -





 - (Live video)

"*Strange Town*" - 1978 - (# 15) -






"*When You're Young*" - 1979 - (# 17) -






"*The Eton Rifles*" - 1979 - (# 3) -





 - (Live video)

"*Going Underground*" - 1980 - (A-Side) - (# 1) -





 - (Live video)

"*Dreams of Children*" - 1980 - (B-Side) - (# 1) -






"*Start!*" - 1980 - (# 1) -





 - (Live video)

"*That's Entertainment*" - 1981 - (# 21) -





 - (Live video)

"*Funeral Pyre*" - 1981 - (# 4) -






"*Absolute Beginners*" - 1981 - (# 4) -





 - (Live video)

"*Town Called Malice*" - 1982 - (A-Side) - (# 1) -






"*Precious*" - 1982 - (B-Side) - (# 1) -





 - (Live video)

"*Just Who Is the 5 O'Clock Hero?*" - 1982 - (# 8) -






"*The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow)*" - 1982 - (# 2) -






"*Beat Surrender*" - 1982 - (# 1) -





 - (Live video)


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

So, were they punk or new wave? Back then it was a valid question, they were compared to the Clash a lot, but Weller proved to be more pop than Mick Jones, and they had no Joe...

I owned a copy of Sound Affects, might have to hear them again... I think maybe they were just a bit too Brit sounding for us Yankees... whatever that means... the neo-Mod thing wasn't cross-Atlantic...


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## Guest (Aug 30, 2018)

philoctetes said:


> So, were they punk or new wave? Back then it was a valid question, they were compared to the Clash a lot, but Weller proved to be more pop than Mick Jones, and they had no Joe...
> 
> I owned a copy of Sound Affects, might have to hear them again... I think maybe they were just a bit too Brit sounding for us Yankees... whatever that means... the neo-Mod thing wasn't cross-Atlantic...


If you were to ask me to make a suggestion I would recommend -

"Down in the Tube Station at Midnight"

"Going Underground"

"Town Called Malice"

If those three don't do it then perhaps they're just not to your taste. Try a minute or so of each - that's why they're placed within the text - to give someone the chance to actually listen to the tunes.

Hope you enjoy them -

- Syd


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

yeah I'm listening now... I always liked Town Called Malice, it's like something from Costello's Get Happy! with the Motown thing... I forgot that I had a copy of The Gift too... that cover has a Dave Clark 5 look...


Going Underground perfectly illustrates their fusion of punk and pop, that's not a simple song structure, but it has punk energy on a Strummer level... :tiphat:

That's Entertainment is a good rhapsodic kinda tune, almost like The Smiths... and still sounds great...

So you win... I win we all win


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

After hearing 8 tracks from a Jam playlist here is one fault: Start! is a Taxman ripoff.

Tube Station sounds a lot like Safe European Home, Not sure which came first...

Still it's been an enjoyable listen... they are better than I remembered.


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