‘The distant echo… of far away voices boarding far away trains…’
My dad passed away in November of 2018. I’ve been trying to think of a way to honour his memory that would have a bit of permeance – something that I could tangibly create that I could then return to in later years. I settled on For Pete’s Sake – a YouTube series in which I go through my dad’s record collection and review them one record at a time. To accompany those videos, I will also be writing a written review of each album. This will give me a bit more room to explore the records themselves in greater detail on a musical level. The videos will be more dad-centric, while these reviews will focus more on the music. Anyway, the first album up is All Mod Cons by The Jam. Let’s dive in…
Released on 3 November 1978 (two days after my Dad’s 21st birthday), All Mod Cons was the band’s third album and it’s probably their most important and most lauded. This is the Modern World, the album that preceded this one, had not done particularly well – critically or commercially. This inevitably meant that there was a lot riding on All Mod Cons. It’s worth noting that it was common for artists to take a couple of albums to find their feet (Blur, Pulp, Bruce Springsteen are all prominent examples), and that this is a luxury often not afforded to modern day guitar bands – one of the many reasons why the scene has become stagnant. This tension can be felt in the lyrics ‘To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have a Nice Time)’ finding frontman Paul Weller in an introspective mood. He seems to be looking back on a career that was in reality only just beginning with both anger and regret. More importantly, it’s a brilliant song.
What sets this album apart from the two that preceded it is how melodic it is. The slow burn of ‘Mr. Clean’, the maudlin wistfulness of ‘English Rose’, the timeless genius of ‘Down in the Tube Station at Midnight’… all of these tracks mark a sonic lurch forward for the band that is arguably the highpoint of their career. The snarl and spit of the first two records is still present on ‘Billy Hunt’ and particularly ”A’ Bomb in Wardour Street’, but you can feel Weller and the rest of the band moving away from the punk scene that birthed them into a space that is altogether more interesting (and would eventually lead to the formation of The Style Council).
All Mod Cons is not just The Jam’s best album, it’s also one of the best albums of the post-punk movement – a timeless classic that will ring out from pub jukeboxes forever more. No wonder my dad loved it.