All Mod Cons – The Jam

Year Released: 1978

Label: Polydor

Year Bought: Unsure

When I first started learning to play the guitar, my school mate Daniel took me under his wing and made me some cassettes with songs I had to know.

Daniel could already play the guitar, was good at football, and had a cool haircut. Therefore, I trusted his judgement.*

One cassette was filled with early Beatles stuff, and the other was songs by The Jam. Both blew my tiny mind.

While I loved the melodies and musicianship of the Beatles, the Jam spoke to the angry young man persona I had fallen into as a teenager.

All Mod Cons, the Jam's third album in two years, is the moment Paul Weller really finds consistency with his songwriting.

The standout track is album closer, 'Down In The Tube Station At Midnight', which even nearly 40 years since its release sounds contemporary, with the protagonist being beaten up by men who "smell like pubs, and Wormwood Scrubs, and too many right-wing meetings".

There's gems all across the record. 'To Be Someone (Didn't We Have A Nice Time)' is a young Weller pretending to be an older Weller looking back on a lost career, 'Billy Hunt' has the singer in full spitting-out-lyrics-against-the-establishment mode ("If it's not you moaning, then it's someone else /Jumping down my throat, every chance you get"), and 'Mr. Clean' is a vignette of suburban life that Damon Albarn would later take and run with.

There's some tender moments as well, because even geezers have feelings. 'English Rose' is now a standard, while 'It's Too Bad' bemoans the end of a relationship – complete with a nod to 'She Loves You' with the guitar part.

Throughout the record, Bruce Foxton wields his bass like a lead guitar, and I feel he never really got enough credit for his spot-on vocal harmonising that really gave the Jam an extra layer compared to many of their contemporaries.

This is not a perfect album, but it shows that Weller - who was just 20 when it was recorded and released - was on the path to becoming one of the best songwriters the country has ever produced.

7/10

*Daniel and I were in a band for a while. Him on lead guitar, me on vocals, and we covered 'Down In The Tube Station...'. We had a falling out about something. So it goes.

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