The fifth studio album from The Jam. This is not actually my favourite album by The Jam, but that is of no consequence because all six of the band's studio albums warrent a place in this Top 30 (provided you don't get to pedantic about the 'punk' bit.
I have located two significant reviews of the album and I concur with them both, as do the reviewers from NME and Record Mirror (it was almost as if they compared notes prior to going to press). Paul Du Noyer got it right with his opening lines, in that no two albums from The Jam were the same, each represented a musical progression from the last. 'Sound Affects' was preceded by 'Setting Sons', their best in my view. But whereas 'Setting Sons' is darkly claustrophobic taking on gritty themes, especially in 'Private Hell' and 'Little Boy Soldiers', 'Sound Affects' is more upbeat... in parts a celebration of youth and a nod to the Mod Revival that they themselves had unwittingly fomented ('Pretty Green' and 'Boy About Town'). Regarding 'Boy About Town' I agree again with Du Noyer that this tune is more in keeping with 1980's crop of 'Mods May Day' Weller wannabes. The album does also revisit earlier themes, Weller's 10-minute masterpiece (the time taken to write it according to PW) 'That's Entertainment' is a sequel to 'Saturday's Kids', whilst 'Man In The Cornershop' once again views dreams and disappointments of the aspirational.
At the time of 'Sound Affects', The Jam could do no wrong and to be honest, they made very few mistakes from this point through to the break up of the band. Their legacy as one of Britain's greatest bands is untarnished.
Polydor knew this would be a hit (the album peaked in the UK at No. 2 being kept from the top spot by Abba's 'Super Trouper', so no disgrace there) and this was reflected in the promotional budget. Multiple variants of a promotional advert appeared across the music press.
Here's the critics view then.
New Musical Express (22nd November 1980)
THE JAM
Sound Affects (Polydor)
NOT ANOTHER Jam album? Well, no, actually. There's never been "just another Jam Album", and 'Sound Affects' is no exception. Like each successive release of their career, this album takes the band forward; just as 'Setting Sons' did from 'Mod Cons' did from 'Modern World' did from 'In The City'. 'Sound Affects' isn't a perfect Jam 'album, even if it is a great one, but above all it's a brave departure and an earnest effort to break new ground. 'Sound Affects' is The Jam today, and that's what we need most of all!
The new songs represent a band that's as vital and as capable of anger as ever; butmore than ever before The Jam's attacking spirit is being allied to melodic invention, and to lyrics that are increasingly thoughtful. Ignore any suggestions that they're going soft or '67. That dense, heavy Jam sound which found its climax in 'Going Underground' and in the last album has been cut back, stripped down to only its most basic parts. Instrumentation is stark, spare and hard - though any bleakness that might imply is
amply compensated for by the ' richness of the playing and by the depth of the writing. The new songs include some of the simplest the band have ever done, yet also the most memorable.
Side one opens with 'Pretty Green', already an established feature in the live set. Built on a terse, insistent rhythm (inspired initially by Weller's liking for Michael Jackson), its lyrics describe an innocence that comes quickly to grasp the cash nexus: luxury or necessity, "this is society / You can't do nothing, unless it's in the pocket". By way of complete contrast comes 'Monday', a beautiful love song that climbs up to classic status via some soaring chorus harmonies, culminating in Weller's impassioned declaration: "I will never be embarrassed about love again': perhaps the record's most significant line.
Paul Weller's frank admiration for middle·period Beatles is evident throughout ‘Sound Affects', especially in the guitar work. 'Start' we already know about (included here in re-mixed form) and, another driving love song 'But I'm Different Now' comes stuffed with 'Dr Robert' riffing and 'I Feel Fine' ripples. The crucial point, though, is that these influences are incorporated only to enrich what's already there, and remain firmly subservient to Weller's own songwriting gifts and to the distinct, powerful identity of The Jam. As with The Who touches in earlier work, whoever they look to for inspiration it's always The Jam themselves who come out on top.
'Set The House Ablaze' has an 'Eton Rifles' feel, strident Buckler beat and marching army whistling. Its words, too, echo themes from 'Setting Sons' - old mate joins army, indoctrination sets in, communications breakdown follows. The tone is bitter, but with frustration not hatred .'That's Entertainment', which closes the first side, must rate as one of Paul Weller's finest pieces to date. Mellow, soothing harmonies underscore the chorus/title-line, brutally thrown into an ironic light by the verses, which amount to a jarring - litany of snapshot images seen through a young man's eyes in contemporary England, some violent, some sordid, some tender. "A police car and a screaming siren ... Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat ... That's ' entertainment". No point me labouring songs that speak well for themselves, but it's been a perennial aspect of Paul's lyrics, this trick of taking the individual-in-a-crowd and throwing his perspective into sudden isolation, the participant as spectator ('In The Crowd’, 'Away From The Numbers', 'Tube Station', 'Wardour Street') retreating into himself. Sufficient to say that he's observing with more vivid descriptive ability than at any time previously.
Side two starts with a couple of similarly excellent numbers, but overall it fails to maintain the standard of the first. 'Dream Time' is harsh and abrasive, more traditional Jam in style. 'Man In The Corner Shop', another gorgeously memorable tune, returns to some gently sardonic reflections on the English class system: as always, the view-point is a humane, personalistic one rather than political in the mass, didactic sense. Although there are no Bruce Foxton compositions this time around, 'Music For The last
Couple' is credited as a group - effort. Essentially a studio session, it makes great play of the 'sound effects' parodied in the LP's title and cover art. Very loose in construction, with few words to speak of, it's the album's one lapse into self-indulgence; it's a pressure drop and, really, it lets the side down.
But the final tracks -:- 'Boy About Town' and 'Scrape Away' - also represent a tailing off. The former is strangely out of place, almost like one of those jaunty mod anthems that Jam imitators were churning out all last year. The lyrics do work to undercut the self-confidence of the chorus somewhat - but even the addition of 'Penny lane' brass doesn't lift the song much above average. 'Scrape Away', meanwhile, is disappointingly negative and vague. Like 'Last Couple', it gives an uncomfortable impression of being rushed through to beat a deadline.
But let's end on a positive note. Where Sound Affects' is good it's great, and where it's not so good it's still good. The Jam should go on being number one in our hearts and charts because they go on earning the right to be. I've got 'Sound Affects' and I'm chuffed with it and all want now ... is another Jam album.
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