About The Young Idea: The Best of The Jam / new compilation

44 thoughts on “About The Young Idea: The Best of The Jam / new compilation”

1. I’m turning comments off on this post now. I don’t know if the existing comments disappear or not (don’t think they do) but anyway, sorry folks but can’t be doing with continued arguing and ‘he started it’… etc

2. I could, if I so wished, click on every article on this site that’s about an artist whom I dislike or in whom I have no interest and leave a comment explaining why I dislike them or have no interest in them. But I don’t. Because I’m not an idiot.

3. I agree, these types of rows are boring.
   Are we sure that Paul Weller approves all of these Jam releases? I find that difficult to believe as he strikes me as being someone with integrity. There has just been so many of them that surely it us the record company trying to earn more money from the back catalogue.

4. If we could please just calm down on this comments section and not insult each other (you know who you are!). I will switch the ability to leave comments off for this post if it continues, which would be a shame.

   As Stan points out SDE is normally great, because everyone is quite grown up and chips in with informative, intelligent contributions. I’d really like to keep it that way.

   Best advice is if someone is being provocative or annoying just IGNORE them :) Reading what basically amounts to bickering is REALLY BORING!

   1. Paul, there is nothing wrong with stating one’s opinion on a band, and using words like “derivative” or “overrated”. The problem started when some bloke calling himself thegreatelephant started attacking me personally for doing so. If you reread the posts, I was stating my opinion, and making a case about their lack popularity in North America and their relevance in general. As with any sensible being, when I am attacked, I attack back.

      1. I have made ‘deriative’ my word of the week also.

         1. when I can learn to type it properly of course

      2. But that isn’t what this website is really about. There are plenty of music sites out there for discussing which artist are better and why, this site is a friendly society and there is remarkably little rowing and bickering going on, at least in the 2 years that I have been reading and contributing anyway.

5. This idea of forever milking the Jam catalogue has long since started to sound old. Weller floods the market with his own (usually rather good) new material on a yearly basis, but when it comes to his old band, and all this recycled, slightly rejigged and embellished reissue business, you have to say “E-NUFF!”……..

6. The 5Disc Boxset “Direction, Reaction, Creation” was much better!

7. You mean what is the combination of electric guitar, bass, and drums, with aggressive vocals and a mod flair derivative of?
   Hmm…..I’ll have to research that one…

   1. Gents, SDE has never been a so & so’s great / so & so ‘s rubbish forum. It’s much better than that. So let’s knock this on the head and talk about the love of music. If you don’t like it, contribute to something you do like.

      1. after you just gave your opinion on the Jam you want everyone else to button it? righto. some people rightfully need putting in their pompous place, it’s not about whether someone likes a band or not. this patronising troll originally reckoned on speaking for a continent- so he got a reaction he was looking for, both from the UK and said landmass. merely to point out the ludicrousness of his grandiose ramblings.

         1. Mate, you really need to get a life. And you need to get over your hero worship of rock stars, soccer teams, etc, whereby you take things so personally that you’re ready to fight to the death. I’ve been to the UK, and I never saw such a rude insulting fool such as you there. Are you sure you’re British? You obviously never learned British manners. I’m not speaking for a continent. The group’s sales of albums, singles, and concerts (when the Jam was still together) in North America makes the case that the Jam simply weren’t very popular here. I also made it clear that I still like them. I believe in any western country people have the right to freedom of speech, and I simply expressed that I find the Jam overrated and derivative. And in the Jam’s heyday, many fans of the Jam and their contemporaries used to express the same thing about Pink Floyd, Queen, Rod Stewart, etc, etc The thing is, if you really think about it, most rock bands are derivative. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy them anyway. So, piss off, go eat your bangers and mash, and for god sake start brushing your teeth and go e a dentist. Christ.

            1. Rather proves my point. One numbskull feeds off another.

            2. i did enjoy that, that certainly was entertainment.

            3. I will look forward to further enlightened discourse such as this from these gentlemen

8. I’d love to know what ‘Going Underground’, ‘Eton Rifles’ & ‘Down In The Tube Station’ are derivative of. Let me know, Lennie, and I’ll check them out with much interest. (And don’t just list Kinks, Small Faces or The Who as per usual, it really doesn’t apply to their finest records).

9. Because I’m an EVIL person, mate.

10. Very few North American music fans ever cared about the Jam, and we don’t understand why they are so revered.

    1. The same went for XTC, but they were brilliant. I think the loss is the lack of taste on the part of many fans in North America. To be honest, I think The Jam did well in Canada. The releases up to The Gift were all delayed in the US, whereas in Canada, we got them earlier, plus EPs and singles.

       1. I wouldn’t call it a lack of taste, just different sensibilities. However, whereas XTC was original and very underrated, the Jam was derivative and overrated.

          1. You almost had me there, Lennie. The first part is correct, it’s just a matter of personal taste – but then you denigrate The Jam in a rather silly way. Oh well.

    2. Very few English bands ever cared about North American music fans when writing their music either, funnily enough

    3. Lennie, you’re entitled to your view but you’re wrong. You had to be there at the time. The Jam were THE band in the UK from 78-82. A very short time but so many great records. Sadly never got the chance to see them live. The intro to Going Underground still gives me goosebumps, 35 years on.

    4. You may be right that very few NA music fans ever cared about the Jam, but there are still many of us who do. They’re revered because they were a unique voice in music and had some killer tunes. BTW I’m in San Diego, CA via Seattle, WA.

       1. Gentlemen, let’s maintain our composure. I never said the Jam weren’t good, and I never said I didn’t like them. I only said they were derivative and overrated. So are many other bands we love to listen to. Only a handful of bands are truly original. That’s Rock and Roll.

    5. Lennie, if you think they were so overrated, why go to the trouble of reading an article about their new collection and then posting a comment on it?

11. Where the **** is the VINYL version? VINYL is what’s selling NOT CDs ! A dozen or more cd compilations of the Jam out there but NO recent vinyl ones? The best thing Universal could do is fire their product development team-they haven’t got a clue what’s going on in the market today!

    1. This release will be aimed at new fans, presumably younger ones as there are countless Jam compilations out there. The demos are only there to catch the Jam completist. Despite the hype, CDs still massively outsell vinyl (56m to 1.3m in the UK last year). A casual fan wanting to take a chance on getting into the Jam isn’t going to pay £30 for a double LP.

       Anyway, Snap still beats them all and it sells for only £5.

12. Weller has to sign on on all releases, apparently he’s also involved in a new multi disc Jam box set for later in the year…

13. When the tracklist was originally published there were two previously unreleased songs listed. I think one was called The Good Wife, wonder what happened to those?

    1. Good Wife and Ordinary Man were the two titles, they were positioned among All Mod Cons tracks, the titles look Foxtonesque. In that case, probably terrible.

14. So what’s this, 2cds only to get 2 ‘new’ demos? Do they think we’re completely fool?

15. Either of the first two albums could be released with the complete 100 Club gig as the bonus disc.

16. I’m not your typical Jam fan, given I really only enjoyed their first two releases. I could maybe listen to their third, but beyond that I lost interest.

    As such, the new unreleased track is of interest, but the vast majority of the rest of it isn’t. I wish they’d do a proper Deluxe Edition of their debut.

17. If you want to see real exploitation, see this 7″ single at £7.99

    There is shipping costs on top of that price!

    Plus if you want the box, it is an additional £3.00

    http://www.thestereoboutique.com/en/s/paul-weller-the-singles/

18. peerless genius

19. Who gives a toss The Clash were the better band !

20. Mark, it is hardly the bands themselves who come up with these ideas. I doubt Paul Weller has signed off on this release.

    1. He’s promoting it on his own website, so that suggests at least tacit approval!

       1. Promoting is not quite accurate. It is mentioned at the end of a story mainly on the Somerset House photo exhibition which at least IS something new.

          However I do agree, thru this, the Gift/Setting Sons SDEs, the expensive book of photos, and the extra tracks exclusively on the most expensive Saturns Pattern set I am beginning to feel a bit exploited. It was never like that in the Jam/TSC days.

21. Another cash-in.

    1. The Jam (one of my favourite bands) are as bad as Tupac at rustling up a seemingly never ending stream of previously unreleased material.
       Drip feeding it over release after release.

       I know, I know…..we don’t have to buy it etc etc…..

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