Larkin, Colin (2011). "Jam". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th conciseed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8. Another terrific review of another terrific Jam album. Sound Affects has always been my favorite because of its musical and lyrical consistency (with one glaring exception, which you note and dismiss as appropriate) and the brighter production is a good choice for an album referencing Revolver — which is my favorite album by anyone ever. The denser production of Setting Sons wouldn’t have worked as well here. I would give a bit more credit to Set the House Ablaze, probably the most propulsively angry anti-fascism song ever recorded, but you are right that Weller’s vocals do get a bit buried in the mayhem. He is much easier to understand in the equally fiery live version on Dig the New Breed. In 2006, Q placed Sound Affects at number 15 on its list of the "40 Best Albums of the '80s". [21] In 2013, NME ranked Sound Affects at number 487 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. [22] In 2020, Rolling Stone included Sound Affects in their "80 Greatest albums of 1980" list, praising the band for crafting their "finest album", while encapsulating "the classic English songcraft of the Kinks and the Small Faces, singing about working-class anger". [23] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. [24] The UK is (obviously) a smaller country, and with a weekly music press who worked to hype the next big thing. So it was easier for a band to get known around the country much faster. The US is a huge country with the music magazines (at the time Rolling Stone and Creem would be the biggest) coming out less frequently and were much less influential. There was no easy way to get big in the US in the late ’70s/early 80’s if you were a punk(ish) band, not only did you have to get in good with the critics (which The Jam mostly did here in the US), but you had to do legwork.

Nyman, Jake (2005). Suomi soi 4: Suuri suomalainen listakirja (in Finnish) (1sted.). Helsinki: Tammi. p.221. ISBN 951-31-2503-3. There cannot be much more said about the album’s masterful centerpiece 'That’s Entertainment' that hasn’t been already. It’s a piece of urban art in league with Banksy – about finding beauty in the little noticed and sometimes maligned details of the grey mood and mundane routines of city life. The unsubtle words are accompanied by simple acoustic instrumentation, all appropriately stripped down for a tune that needs no bells and whistles. However, even this monster tune is not without influences worn brazenly. The lyrics take inspiration from a poem by the young poet Paul Drew called 'Entertainment' and Weller favourites The Small Faces’ 'Itchycoo Park' lends the spinal chords to the intro.The boy responds with similar disdain, reflecting Lennon’s take on the insanity of modern existence: “Everybody seems to think I’m lazy/I don’t mind, I think they’re crazy/Running everywhere at such a speed/’Till they find there’s no need”:

The Jam were seen as the centre of mod revival culture during the 1970s to the 1980s, and the lead singer of the band, Paul Weller, was seen as The Modfather. The band separated in 1982, following ten years active, and five years of success. Shortly after the band's break-up, Weller went on to form The Style Council, before embarking on a solo career and releasing his first studio album, which was self-titled, in 1992. The 80 Greatest Albums of 1980 What came out of all this was, arguably, the greatest year for great albums ever". Rolling Stone. 11 November 2020 . Retrieved 12 November 2020.

Credits (12)

The album features the group's second UK number one single, "Start!". Polydor pushed for "Pretty Green" to be the first single released, but Weller insisted on "Start!". This involved consulting a few of the band's friends as to what they thought the best release would be. Weller had Polydor A&R man Dennis Munday ask a small peer group of his friends who had been present throughout the recording sessions at the Town House and prior demo recordings at Polydor Studios. Given the choice, they selected "Start!" as the best single release and the decision was made to release it. The decision was vindicated when "Start!" topped the British singles charts in its third week after entering at number three. [7] The band’s final studio album was The Gift in 1982, which includes the Jam’s third No.1 A Town Called Malice; the album went on to top the charts and in 2012 was reissued in a super deluxe format. Soon after The Gift came out Paul Weller left to form The Style Council and later, of course, he had his own very successful solo career. Pretty Green” may come across as an astonishingly simple song, but the simplest messages often contain more truth than the longest speeches, poems or novels: