A college classmate introduced me to the Jam and I have been an enthusiast ever since. I love the passion of their songs and much of their politics and attitude resonates with me. Musically I especially like their hard-edged power-pop of their post-All Mod Cons recordings, including their exploration of soul and softer pop genres in their last songs. Bruce Foxton was a very imaginative and aggressive bassist and filled out the Jam's sound; he effectively covered their lack of a 2nd guitarist. On a similar topic, Paul Weller was and is a decent rhythm guitarist, but he lacked the chops of a good lead guitarist and the Jam's sound was hamstrung as a trio ("Private Hell" is a good example of this), despite Foxton's consistently strong bass play. This demonstrates also why I like the Jam's latter-period songs that incorporate additional musicians and instruments (much of The Gift, especially "Town Called Malice" and "Ghosts", "Beat Surrender", "Great Depression", "The Bitterest Pill").
One more comment--the contributions of Bruce Foxton and probably drummer Rick Buckler to Paul Weller's songs have been underestimated and I believe they should have been given songwriting credits for much of Weller's music.
|