Albums by The Jam
ALBUMThe Gift (Remastered)The Jam
ALBUMSound Affects (Deluxe Version)The Jam
ALBUMSetting Sons (Super Deluxe Edition)The Jam
ALBUMAll Mod Cons (1997 Remaster)The Jam
ALBUMIn the City (Remastered)The Jam
ALBUMThis Is the Modern World (Remastered Version)The Jam
The Jam's Popular Music Videos
That's Entertainment
The Jam
The Dreams of Children
The Jam
Start!
The Jam
Town Called Malice
The Jam
Going Underground
The Jam
In The City (Live At Electric Circus)
The Jam
Absolute Beginners
The Jam
Artist Playlists
The Jam Essentials
Succumb to the beat surrender!
Inspired by The Jam
Literate punk and tuneful Britpop with a hat tip to the mod legends.
The Jam: Influences
Sharp and dynamic mod pop, played with punk aggression.
The Jam: Deep Cuts
Scathing social critique and doomed street-level romance.
Artist Biography
The Jam burst from the crucible of British punk with a style that simultaneously defied the movement’s scorched-earth attitude toward the past and pointed a way beyond the genre’s borders. The Woking-based trio of singer/guitarist Paul Weller, bassist Bruce Foxton, and drummer Rick Buckler were schoolmates who’d already been together for years when they released their 1977 debut LP. In the City bore a speedy, sharp-edged sound bringing punk’s anger and energy to the influences of ’60s mod (The Who, Small Faces) and soul, with a natty visual style to match. Weller was still a teen, but his songs were already fusing passion, poetry, and politics in a manner beyond his years. Over their next couple of albums, their sound became more nuanced without losing its power-trio immediacy. By decade’s end, The Jam were standard-bearers for a full-fledged mod-revival movement (The Chords, Secret Affair, et al). In the early ’80s they reached a musical and commercial peak in the UK—they never troubled the top of the charts elsewhere—with the masterfully eclectic Sound Affects (sporting singles like the Beatles-esque “Start!” and the acoustic-guitar-driven social plaint “That’s Entertainment”) and the No. 1 album The Gift, which expanded their sound further to include funk grooves and brass arrangements. In 1982, a restless Weller broke the band up, quickly starting the successful soul-pop group The Style Council and later becoming a respected solo artist. Just after the breakup, The Jam ensured they’d be missed all the more by releasing the non-LP single “The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow),” a string-laden, soul-inflected ballad that proved a perfect elegy for them.
Hometown
Woking, Surrey, England
Genre
Rock