Sound Affects - Dark Publications

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Similar Items:

•	Setting Sons
•	In the City
•	Extras: A Collection of Rarities
•	The Gift
•	This Is the Modern World/All Mod Cons

Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
By the time the Jam released Sound Affects, they were well on their way out of their angled, clean-guitar choppiness and headed toward a pop amalgam that loaned itself to horns, strings, and more. "Pretty Green" is something like its title, a very pretty little tune that hints at things other than what lies on the rest of the album. "That's Entertainment" became the band's acoustic zenith, urgent and strong in its lyrical collision of everyday life and postmodern society mechanisms. There are danceable hoppers such as "Start!" and motoring energizers such as "Set the House Ablaze," and all of it seems to coincide in a great, effortless sway of styles as they run into and through each other. --Andrew Bartlett

Album Description
Japanese only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD - playable on all CD players) pressing. Packaged in a paper sleeve. Universal. 2008.

Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

The best album from one of the world's greatest ever bands November 25, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

It's difficult to define what the Jam really mean to me as there's always that risk of pidgeonholing them and thus reducing them, but in the rare case of the Jam the music speaks for itself. I'm sure likeminded people who really love the Jam will know what I mean and admit that the band's music is more than just a collection of great songs, but instead a soundtrack to life, particularly for those like me who lived in Britain at the time the songs were written and recorded. Weller's songs speak of how we all feel but could never quite put into words and the Jam were always about speaking to young people one-on-one from a mutual standpoint and never as the "idolised pop group singing to the starry-eyed fans that hang on their every word". The Jam's first two albums were essentially punk records while their following albums showed a broad range of influences including the Small Faces, the Who, the Kinks, the Beatles, Tamla Motown and, in the last year or so of their career, soul and funk. Paul Weller's songwriting abilities already reached incredible heights on the album "All Mod Cons" and progressed even further on "Setting Sons", but for me, the next album, "Sounds Affects" is the one that continues to stand out and is, in my view, the album that displays the peak of Weller's songwriting. Some critics have cited "Sound Affects" as the Jam's "Revolver" and it's not difficult to see why. In fact, the Beatles' "Revolver" was played relentlessly by the group on the tour they embarked on prior to entering the studio to record "Sound Affects" and it's influence is clearly audible here, from the backwards guitars on "Dream Time" and "That's Entertainment" to the bass riff from "Taxman" on "Start!". There isn't a bad song on the album. From the infectious opening bass line of "Pretty Green" to the closing fade of "Scrape Away", this album perfectly captures the angst, boredom and frustration felt in the dawn of Thatcher's Britain at the dawn of a new decade. The line "Pissing down with rain and boring Wednesdays" from "That's Entertainment" sums it all up, and it is also clearly felt in the track "Set The House Ablaze", but there are still glimmers of optimism shown in the Ray Davies-esque "Monday" and "Man In The Corner Shop". A truly great album is one that evokes the times when it was recorded but that also still carries momentum, and sometimes even relevance, when listening to it today. "Sound Affects" is one such album.

5 out of 5 stars

you had to be there November 19, 1999
2 out of 4 found this review helpful

I heard this album one day after its release on a cold day in northern england , just before I went to school, just before Christmas. My sister and I were Jam crazy, and our parents had purchased the album for one of our joint Xmas pressies, We were not satisfied with waiting for that fatefull christian day and both demanded just the first track to be played before we went to school. My beautiful parents played it and I will remember that moment for ever. This was befor the internet. mp3 you name it. " I' ve got a pocket full of pretty green" flowed and was beautiful. The whole album is so green and pretty. Thats Entertainment is one of my all time classics and it's value and strength to me is dedicated to a new and yet very old friend of mine , "Danny" he knows who he is LV99.

4 out of 5 stars

Stunning effort by a maturing punk band. July 11, 2000
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

The Jam took British punk music and made it into something more, and each album finds them exploring a different facit of their sound. "Sound Affects" is between the era of hard mod rock and soul seen on the final album. It begins with the punkish "Pretty Green" and immediatly slows into the almost dreary "Monday". The optimistic "But I'm Different Now" is of lesser quality, but short. "Set the House Ablaze" is another hard song with an interesting minor key lead line. "Start" takes the Beatles "Taxman" bassline and adds in Paul Weller's mod sensablities to make it a new song. "That's Entertainment" is a dark and moody acoustic song exploring the ups and downs of life. "Dream Time" and "Music for the Last Couple" are interesting and unique, but are somehow rather forgetable as well. "Man in the Corner Shop" is another Beatles take-off, borrowing from "Here Comes the Sun" a guitar line that Paul makes his own. "Boy About Town" is quintesential mod-pop with a cheery trumpet solo. The album closer is an abrupt change in mood, showing Weller at his nastiest and most blunt" ("Your twisted cynicism makes me feel sick... The trouble is your thoughts a catching disease"). Overall, this album mirrors the Beatles "Revolver" in its vague psychedelic vibe, rock sensiblities and solid songwriting indicative of a great band and talented songwriter.

5 out of 5 stars

Band hits pinnacle of their career next-to-last LP June 19, 2000
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

After hitting a new peak with their third LP, "All Mod Cons," their fourth LP, "Setting Sons" seemed to lose focus. This followup, and their next-to-last studio LP, put it all back together: the punchy instrumentalism of their debut, the strong songwriting and melodicism of "All Mod Cons," and a strong dash of poeticism in the lyrics. It's truly Paul Weller's most consistent and powerful set of songs to date.

Musically this draws heavily from Revolver-era Beatles. The psychedelic touches are spare, but the guitar and basslines echo the tone of the Beatles '66 release. Lyrically, Weller moves away from the storytelling he'd become so adept at and uses more poetic forms. "Man in the Corner Shop," for example, is a brilliantly formed lyric that describes a community's chain of envy, and "That's Entertainment" creates images that stick in the mind long after the LP's finished playing.

Through and through this is the Jam's highpoint, and perhaps the finest example of Britain's rock 'n' roll of the era. It's an amazing document of how far this band evolved in the three years since their debut.

4 out of 5 stars A punk-pop gem November 13, 1998
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

More upbeat than "Setting Sons," which preceded it, "Sound Affects" contains two of Paul Weller's greatest songs, "Man in the Corner Shop," an indictment of England's stratified class system, and "That's Entertainment," a simple song about simple pleasures, written by Weller in an alcohol-induced euphoria (and later covered by Morrissey). These song alone are worth the price of the CD. Also not to be missed is the perfect segue between "Pretty Green" and the wistful "Monday," the brusing postpunk thrashers "Set the House Ablaze" and "But I'm Different Now," or the sprightly "Boy About Town." This CD is worth every penny.

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