Dave Simpson 

The Jam: Setting Sons (Super Deluxe Edition) review – a band on a fast and furious roll

It’s not many people’s favourite Jam album, but Setting Sons still contains some storming songs, and this box adds some fine extras, writes Dave Simpson
  
  

Members of The Jam
Still relevant … the Jam. Photograph: Neal Preston/Corbis Photograph: /Neal Preston/Corbis

Between May 1977 and November 1979, the Jam released four albums and nine singles, a pace of output that peaked when Setting Sons was hurried along by a record company keen to capitalise on the band’s connection with Britain’s youthful masses. As a result, the album – intended as an Orwell-inspired concept – seems flawed next to 1978’s All Mod Cons and 1980’s Sound Affects, but captures why the young Paul Weller was (reluctantly) dubbed the “spokesman for a generation”. The still-relevant The Eton Rifles is the colossus here, but Thick As Thieves and Little Boy Soldiers show what a fast and furious roll they were on. This lavish 4CD edition includes singles, demos, a Peel session, a DVD, a storming live document from Brighton and beautiful 12” artwork. The whopping £85 price tag suggests it’s one for the completist for whom seven different versions of When You’re Young are not enough.

 

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