A-Side: Start
B-Side: Liza Radley
Record label: Polydor 2059 266
Producer: Vic Coppersmith-Heaven & The Jam
Released: 15/08/80
Purchased: 1980
Rating The Jam alongside The Kinks and The Who is over-rating them, as far as I’m concerned. Hardly stunning philosophy delivered in Steptoe and Son voice, attached to some Steve Cropper licks. But after three plays it sounds like a hit which is, after all, the name of the game. It’s just that I don’t think I could stand another four page feature. (Sounds, 16/08/80)
Gasp as The Jam hit the concrete with a sickening thud. Facing something of a creative watershed, the fab threesome wearily pulled back the bedclothes one morning and trundled towards the studio.
This single is nothing but a fill in, a lamentable whine slopping around the stereo. The Jam are a band that I either love or hate and there’s nothing on this opus that stands comparison with ‘Down In The Tube Station At Midnight’, or their short string of other mega hits.
Four listens later and I’m still wondering if this has the guts to eventually crawl into the charts. You’d be better off listening to The Beatles’ ‘Taxman’ on the ‘Revolver’ album.
The B-side is an acoustic number about a delicate young thing slipping across a lawn. Altogether now, one, two, three – aarrrhh. (Record Mirror, 16/08/80)
Most of us dishonest hippies up here are seriously fond of The Jam and ‘Start’ is certainly what a previous generation would have described as ‘a diamond-hard riffer’, but it’s a far less challenging piece of work than ‘Going Underground’ or ‘Eton Rifles’.
That noted, it’s by no means unlovely and that galvantic bass and drum part that opens and closes the track (lifted straight from The Beatles’ ‘Taxman’ – where the tortuous, crazed backward guitar solo has relatives) will launch a million handclaps. This time, what Weller has on his mind is the distance between individuals, and the public gets what the public wants (what you see is what you get). Will deserve it’s airplay. (NME, 16/08/80)
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