tracks on LP: Art School / I’ve Changed My Address / Slow Down / I Got By In Time / Away From The Numbers / Batman Theme / In The City / Sounds From The Street / Non-stop Dancing / Time For Truth / Takin’ My Love / Bricks And Mortar
Record Label: Polydor 2383 447
Producer: Vic Smith & Chris Parry
Released: 20/05/77
Purchased: 1980
Rock ‘n’ Roll without embellishment. “Holy love affair Batman —they’re playing OUR song” “Yes Robin, and I’m afraid my utility belt is useless against such an onslaught.”
Armed and extremely dangerous The Jam stalk the decrepit grooves, defacing the sides with the kind of paint spray rock you’ve only read about in anthologies. But they’re here. And now. And If you don’t like ’em hard luck cos they’re gonna be around for a long time.
No one’s gonna tie me down, no one’s gonna tell me what to do.
Typical Jam lyric. Typical Jam endeavour. That one’s from ‘I’ve Changed My Address’ a down and out metropolitan, marauder that leads perfectly into the old Larry Williams rocker ‘Slow Down’ which, some of you old folks may remember, was given artificial respiration by The Beatles over 10 years ago.
That’s the only old number on the album. You don’t count ‘Batman’ ‘cos that’s timeless. The rest are Paul Weller originals. His sounds from the street DO sound so sweet. Bruce Foxton bass, and Rick Buckler drums, make it sweeter. It’s been a long time since albums actually reflected pre-20 (called teenage once upon time) delusions / good times under dog sympathies This one does with tracks like ‘Non-stop Dancing’, ‘Bricks And Mortar’ and my particular favourite ‘Away From The Numbers’ . ***** (Record Mirror, 14/05/77)
The Jam | In The City | Polydor | 1977
THE JAM In The City (Polydor) | THE JAM are the new Who. Everybody knows that. They just might also be the new Dr Feelgood. the new Raspberries, the new Flamin’ Groovies, the new Eddie And The Hot Rods, the new Bay City Rollers . . .
Ominously for punk rock, they probably aren’t the new Pistols, Clash, Damned or Stranglers. They might just shoot straight out of the new wave like the Hot Rods. They might even blow the whole scene apart and make the more ‘offensive’ stance of ‘punk’ obsolete.
The Jam’s commercial potential is enormous. Their music and image, and even their infectious teen-oriented ‘rebel’ lyrical pose, are sufficiently attractive for them to popularise New Wave to the extent where it becomes meaningless.
It was fun while it lasted, but this just might be the real new wave Since their initial appearance in their current guise (having previously dabbled in R&B, teenybop and god knows what else for a couple of years), when they rolled up in Soho Market one Saturday morning in October and played in the street, The Jam haven’t received a single bad review.
Anyway, as for “In The City”: let it be known that debut albums — or any other kind of albums — as good as this one are rare. Paul Weller in particular reveals himself to be a dazzling guitarist and an excellent writer.
I could drone on about his fusing of Townshend’s windmilled chords with Wilko’s raw scratch lead rhythm, about his fusing influences as deftly as but less imitatively than The Raspberries. less as period pieces than The Groovies . . . Or I could just say it’s the best Who album since the “My Generation” LP.
The Jam | In The City | Polydor | 1977
Listen to it closely. Note how Bruce Foxton‘s bass zooms into a flash little double time riff on one verse of Larry Williams’ “Slow Down” (the only non-original apart from the “Batman Theme”) and note the second guitar shooting in at the end of the solo.
Listen close. Note the sneaky second voice responses on “I Got By In Time” and the cushioned feel of its dual or treble rhythm guitars.
Listen. “Away From The Numbers” — melodic, touches of mellow, yearning, sneering, building to an angry climax. Good arrangement, superb song.
There’s a couple of weak numbers, particularly “Batman“, a joke which palls after two plays (and which The Who used to feature) but as for the rest . . .
Weller’s chording is inspired, he skitters in early Townshend feedback licks with ease, he layers his guitars in a way that should be an object lesson to Wilko Johnson —he’s just amazing.
His songs change key, change back, go from silence to hammer riffs, capture that entire teen frustration vibe with the melodic grace and dynamic aplomb of early Kinks and Who.
Other points: Weller’s got a pretty good voice, a little like a cockney Arthur Lee. Rick Buckler‘s drumming is speedy and crisp, with plenty of neat riffs — one particularly attractive tom tom lick on “Art School” — and he’s not afraid to stop playing completely at times. “So Sad About Us” is conspicuously absent — maybe, the second single?
Biggest irony is that Weller — primarily a musician who derides the New Wave’s self-seriousness — writes good words too. Trouble is, I can’t quite get it together to listen to them all through because his guitar is so distractingly excellent.
It’s quite interesting stuff. His escape from suburban anonymity is “Away From The Numbers,” his rewrite-the-rules is (this is the new) “Art School”.
The casual poetic edge works so much better than sloganeering — and even when he takes his targets on head-on as in the sell-out put-down “Time For Truth”, he doesn’t whine or trip up.
Biggest relief: he actually writes boy-girl too. And. for some reason, about that extinct form of enjoyment, dancing. Kind of like pogoing, but they used to jump sideways, so I hear , , ,
Listen closely. Frankly, I didn’t dream I’d be so impressed by “In The City” —having heard it a lot from a distance, I knew all about the energy but I had no idea it was subtle with it. The acceptable face of punk rock indeed. Face it. (NME, 14/05/77)
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