It can be tough for Americans to understand just how huge the Jam were in Britain, given their near-total lack of success in the States, but here's an indication: After the group disbanded, all 16 of their UK singles were reissued by Polydor and all 16 of them re-charted at the same time. A year prior to that, the band managed to land an import single ("Just Who Is the 5 O'Clock Hero?") in the UK top 10.
So in their day, they were legit superstars-- bigger stars than the Clash and nearly on par with them as populist standard bearers of the punk movement. In a broader sense, they're the band most responsible for carrying the torch of concise British guitar pop from its near-death in the early 1970s into the 1980s, where they passed it to the Smiths and ultimately on to the legion of Britpop and trad-rock bands that mushroomed in the 1990s. Their place in the punk pantheon is unique, too: They were well-dressed and skilled at their instruments, played Rickenbackers, and took most of their cues from 60s mod rock and soul, spawning a legion of revivalists in the process. Most of the credit these days goes to the band's primary guitarist, singer and songwriter, Paul Weller, but drummer Rick Buckler and bassist Bruce Foxton were at least as responsible for their sound, providing an uncommonly muscular foundation for Weller's piercing examinations of youth in a collapsed empire.
Without a doubt, Direction Reaction Creation is the most comprehensive Jam collection. Originally released in 1997 (and finally issued in the U.S. late last year), it contains all of their single A- and B-sides, every cut from their six full-lengths, and every non-album EP track they recorded; in short, all of their studio recordings. The one thing it doesn't have is both single and album versions of the songs that appeared on both formats (one exception is Foxton's excellent and overlooked "Smithers-Jones")-- beginning with their debut, "In the City", the band's singles often sounded somewhat different from the versions that wound up on the albums. The most glaring instance is the inclusion of the long-winded 12" version of the funk-heavy "Precious" to the banishment of the shorter and more satisfying album version (there's an alternate version on disc five, as well).
Because it presents the songs in chronological order, the running sequences most fans who own the albums are used to are considerably rearranged due to the displacement of pre-album singles. The benefit of ignoring the boundaries of the albums is that you can hear how fluid the band's evolution was over the first four discs (the last is a collection of covers, alternates, and outtakes that falls outside the chronology). 1977's "In the City" was one of the great debut singles, showcasing Paul Weller's punchy, direct songwriting in all its glory right out of the gate, but it's also exceedingly clear that he owed his existence as a songwriter to Pete Townshend and Johnny Rotten in equal measure.
Disc 1, mostly tracks from the first two Jam albums, shows a band still growing into itself, bouncing through its influences and landing in fantastic songs like "Away From the Numbers" and "Non-Stop Dancing", a joyous tribute, both lyrically and musically, to the Northern Soul dance parties of the late 60s and early 70s. By Disc 2, which centers primarily on the band's brilliant third album, All Mod Cons, they're no longer operating in the shadows of their influences, though they're still present in the form of covers (the Kinks' "David Watts", the Who's "So Sad About Us") and sly musical references (the chord changes lifted from "She Loves You" on "It's Too Bad").
All Mod Cons kicked off a simply amazing run of three superb albums. It, Setting Sons, and Sound Affects have all rightfully achieved classic status. Setting Sons, preceded by the blistering single "Eton Rifles", wasn't perfect (bag that misplaced version of "Heatwave" in particular), but the band's songwriting and interplay were evolving to a greater level of sophistication. "Girl on the Phone", with its two-part harmonies, complex structure and long, twisting instrumental break was a clear new step, while "Private Hell" simply sounds gigantic with its slashing rhythms, harmonies and ominous bass part. Sound Affects brought the band's growing eclecticism into sharp focus, (in)famously ripping the rhythmic undercarriage of "Taxman" for the otherwise original #1 single "Start!" and hinging on the gripping acoustic "That's Entertainment", which captures the uncertainty and horror of post-industrial Britain better than nearly any screaming punk song:
A police car and a screaming sirenA pneumatic drill and ripped up concreteA baby wailing and stray dog howlingThe screech of brakes and lamp light blinkingThat's entertainment.
In the early 1980s, the band's (and in particular Weller's) love of r&b and funk came more to the fore, inaugurating a phase that, while interesting, is also the band's least musically satisfying. Their final album, 1982's The Gift, was their first to top the UK chart, but it was a major letdown after Sound Affects. Eclectic to the point of haphazard, the album bottoms out with the positively lame "Planner's Dream Goes Wrong", a limp song marred by busy steel drums. Weller's voice by this point was a well-trained, soulful instrument, but he didn't give himself enough to do on these songs. The band's concurrent singles offer more to latch onto-- "Funeral Pyre", one of only two Buckler/Foxton/Weller credits in the band's catalog, is a crushing, nasty post-punk groover, and then of course there's "Town Called Malice", an unstoppable and unforgettable Motown tribute with some of Weller's most incisive lyrics about small-town life.
The Jam's final release, the five-song Beat Surrender EP, points the way to Weller's next project, the jazz and soul-influenced Style Council, complementing its two originals with three soul covers. The version of the Chi-Lites' "Stoned Out of My Mind" is excellent, but you have to wonder what they were thinking taking on Norman Whitfield's "War", a song they just couldn't do any justice. Weller disbanded the Jam in late 1982 in part because he felt Foxton and Buckler simply weren't the right rhythm section for what he wanted to do. In a somewhat ironic twist, he formed Style Council with Mick Talbot, whose previous credentials included playing with Jam imitators the Merton Parkas.
This brings us to Hit Parade, a single disc culled from a four-disc box set of the same name. It's Yep Roc's noble but ultimately futile attempt to provide a succinct entry point to Weller's career, from the Jam (seven tracks) through the Style Council (six) and into his solo years (10). Those proportions should raise some eyebrows. The Style Council was a decidedly uneven project (downright bad in its later years) with a messy discography, and six tracks is probably plenty for most people ("Head Start for Happiness" is a fairly glaring omission, though), but to weigh his solo years so heavily over the Jam is simply delusional. "Start!", "Beat Surrender", "That's Entertainment", "Eton Rifles", "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight", "Going Underground", and "Town Called Malice" are all unquestionably among the best Jam songs, but that's not even close to being their only essential material.
Weller's return as a solo artist was one of the first shots of the Britpop revolution, and even in giving a plurality of tracks to this phase of his career, this compilation falls short of providing a full introduction to solo Weller. Focusing on his UK hits means, for instance, both the similar "Peacock Suit" and "Changingman" are here, when, for example, the meditative r&b of "Above the Clouds" in lieu of one of those would have displayed more of his range.
Sequencing it all non-chronologically doesn't really work, either, especially given the way the slick sophistipop of the Style Council rubs so awkwardly against the rootsy rock of solo Weller and the Jam's most biting tracks. Beyond that, it doesn't illustrate any kind of career arc, instead offering a puzzle for the listener to construct. Ultimately, the single-disc boxed-set sampler form is inherently problematic. If you've never heard any Weller-- on his own, or with the Council or Jam-- this might come in handy, but his solo years are better compiled on Modern Classics (admittedly, he's released four albums since that comp, but Hit Parade only touches one of those anyway), and the best non-album intros to the Jam and Style Council are the double disc version of the Snap! compilation and The Singular Adventures of the Style Council, respectively.
So what we have is two extremes: Hit Parade is a too-scant look at Weller's entire career and consequently does little justice to any phase of it, while Direction Reaction Creation is the most complete look at the Jam available. Clearly, a boxed set isn't the place to dive into a band, and it does show all of their warts, from their pointless cover of Neal Hefti's "Batman" theme to their most underdeveloped stabs at soul revival, but true fans will want DRC. In spite of the music's unerring quality, the abbreviated version of Hit Parade's usefulness as a single-disc intro to Weller's career remains limited.
