tracks on LP: Happy Together / Ghosts / Precious / Just Who Is The 5 O’ Clock Hero / Trans-Global Express / Running On The Spot / Circus / The Planner’s Dream Goes Wrong / Carnation / Town Called Malice / The Gift
Polydor POLD 5055
Producer: Peter Wilson
Released: 12/03/82
Purchased: blagged a copy on tape, 1982
LP reviewed in Sounds, 6th March, 1982
THE JAM ‘The Gift’ (Polydor POLD 5055)***** ALTHOUGH THERE is every possibility that any of a hundred lesser known bands have the potential to one day produce as good an artefact as ‘The Gift’, in this flabby carcass of free-enterprise only a lucky few are allowed to ascend to the dizzying heights of multi-national mega-stardom.
The Jam are such favoured sons yet Paul Weller writes and composes because he is a natural social commentator, a talented musician and emotionally articulate, not because of an innate desire to generate vast turnovers of wealth. If he was sweating behind a factory bench he would still be scribbling down his thoughts and observations into a notebook.
Every such communicator needs an outlet for their thoughts but the outlet granted to Weller makes a painfully sharp contrast to the common truths and warm humanity that his messages convey.
Millions can be reached, souls can be touched. A song like ‘Going Underground’ can capture the precise mood and feel of the times to a staggering anthemic degree. BUT . . . any new piece of Jam product is deigned Top Secret by Polydor and zealously guarded as scores of pompous, myth-making media hacks (like me) scramble over one another for scoop hearings and get ready to Proclaim The New Masterpiece.
The Jam | The Gift | Polydor 1982
It is the usual rock and roll bullshit that surrounds any top selling band but I wonder how much this disturbing but seemingly unsolvable dilemma of the pop industry bites into the Weller psyche and how much is he resigned into acceptance of these contradictions?
Somehow I think it is most sweet and fitting that a copy of the item, for so long talked about in revered hushed whispers, should be literally dumped unceremoniously on my doorstep on a damp Saturday night.
Let us unwrap this ‘Gift’. “For those of you watching in black and white, this one’s in technicolour” speaks the voice. There is a knuckle-hard rap of bass, a busily fluttering hi-hat and WHAAM! ‘Happy Together’.
An uplifting, pulse-quickening burst of speeding emotional energy, drenching the listener in the sweat of its tingling, ecstatic excitement. This is a classic album-opening slab of intense, stimulating verve. Real power-pop, in the force of its blast the inconsequential flowers of flaccid pop revivalism wilt like dried up weeds.
Next comes ‘Ghosts’ which switches the adrenalin gush into a relaxed almost dewy-eyed subtle insistence. A reflective plea for fuller self-expression? A lighter side to the dark melancholia of a similarly introspective but stranger, evil side two track called ‘Carnation’?
The only real disappointment is with ‘Just Who Is The 5 O’ Clock Hero’, which sounds virtually like a Jam self-pastiche, one foot treading through ‘Itchycoo Park’ and a set of near throwaway glance-at-life lyrics. Not entirely without impact but reeking suspiciously of being a mere filler.
The Jam | The Gift | Polydor 1982
A bit like a bottom heavy Stax-soul mix is ‘Trans-Global Express’, a swashbuckling rhythmic jamboree, the meaty drum barrage cross cut with some furious brass blowing building into a thunderous, weighty layer beneath which the words are shouted just into the bounds of audibility. A half-heard Weller cry imagines a unified world-wide working class withdrawal of labour to make “our marvellous leaders quiver”.
At strategic points the whole thing melts into a rising tide of multiple repeat echo. The forward looking spirit displayed in this arrangement emphasises the cop-out predictability of the previous cut.
‘Circus’ is a very impressive and likeable instrumental penned by Bruce Foxton and driven by his injection of plentiful elastic bass poke. Fully fledged Moscow State stuff this, an unmistakeable twinge of balalaika in the guitar riff.
‘The Planner’s Dream Goes Wrong’ delivers a vehement and rightly caustic put-down of design-a-tower block but live-in-the-country architects and town-planners who are obsessed with the intricacies of assorted structures but give zero thought to the innocent inmates condemned to reside therein.
The music is impregnated with a joyful calypso up-beat, creating a kind of carnival conga-round-the-concrete-monstrosities, steel drums included courtesy of Russ Henderson.
The Jam | The Gift | Polydor 1982
The invigorating Motown dance-beat and squeaky organ of the ‘Town Called Malice’ whopper-hit is included although I must confess to its effect being dulled somewhat by familiarity. The forty-five’s flip, ‘Precious’, is also present.
The most poignant moment is a number called ‘Running On The Spot’. Each phrase a considered, careful step, Weller delves incisively into the way his hopes and aspirations are battered down and frustrated. it is a true gem of a song with Weller displaying the rare ability to fully verbalize an insight.
‘The Gift’ is another brilliant Jam album. It will be Proclaimed A Masterpiece, It will be something for people in the Biz to clink cocktail glasses over. It will be bought in droves and treasured by fans. Thousands will hear it but how many will actually listen? (Mick Sinclair)
THE JAM: ‘The Gift’ (Polydor POLO 5055) **** AFTER A year and a half In the desert, the three wise men return — ‘The Gift’ in tow. Brows furrowed with care and concern, the Jam call the new pop’s bluff, proving that prettiness is no substitute for joy. They insist on calling Tinseltown by Its proper name: Wasteland.
Fresh-faced “Innocents” – may come and go but Paul Weller, at 23, is the elder spokesman of British youth. On ‘The Gift” Weller assumes his duties with a mixture of earnest philosophising and jaunty, bouncing beat. Long live love!
Kitchen-sink realism
Weller has always swung between the nihilism of punk and the dreamy idealism of a sixties adolescence. The best Jam songs mix an angry kitchen-sink realism with a surging desire for change. Weller’s angry at the way things are but, up to now, unable to see any solutions that aren’t either glib or unlikely.
On ‘The Gift’. he finally steps off the fence and goes for love in the face of despair and intelligence in the place of exhaustion.
Musically, ‘The Gift’ moves right over to Motown, mixing a touch of calypso (on ‘The Planners Dream Goes Wrong’) and a touch of ‘Shaft’-like disco on ‘Precious’) with a basic soul strut. The old Jam multi-layered guitars are here, along with the harmonies and the familiar punch, yet the musical range of ‘The Gift’ is wider than ever and the Jam’s skills more developed.
Familiar Jam touches abound. Mini-moral operas like ‘Ghosts’, which uses the melodic rifting style of ‘Mr Clean’ and more standard Jam work-outs like ‘Just Who Is The Five O’ Clock Hero?’ on the first side, and ‘Carnation’ on the second. The Jam have retained their identity while enlarging it to include ringing brass work and best of all, a bubbly happiness that rings though the album.
Weller’s understanding of dole-queue despair is equalled by his insistence on the value of the secret of the beat. ‘The Gift’ is determined to put joy back In the town called Malice and brings ghosts back to their senses. On ‘Ghosts’ itself, Weller affirms the importance of loving insisting that “old fashioned causes like that still stand”
The Jam are art institution
The slightly apologetic tone isn’t necessary: Weller has no need to be intimidated by the triteness of recent fashions. Yet, in his role as elder spokesman, I suspect he fears the problems raised by the Jam’s superiority. The Jam are art institution and their isolation (who else has survived since 77, morally intact?) could always turn them into a dinosaur.
The major dinosaur tendency on ‘The Gift’ is Weller’s leanings to rather awkward and abstract lyrics. Lines like: ‘We’re the next generation of the emotionally crippled’ hardly bounce along.
And Weller’s newly assumed role as spokesman too often leads him into the silly generalisation. The album’s worst track, the messy ‘Trans-Global Express’ has Weller on the outside looking in, substituting sweeping statements for the Jam’s usual faith, their ordinary, biting anger. Such are the dangers of isolation.
Still, for the most part, Weller and Co keep their integrity by finding glamour no substitute for “truth”. Weller’s earnest concern and occasional lyricism finds its perfect counterpart in the springing joy of sixties’ soul and, yes, the Jam have done it again! Thanks for ‘The Gift’. (Record Mirror, 06/03/82)
More ‘The Gift’ music press reviews
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