The Jam were, in many ways, the perfect singles band. Their tunes were (and are), like Paul Weller’s temper and speech, short and snappy.
There were no ponderous thoughts, no long, overdrawn solos which overstayed their welcomes and no preachy, patronising, state-of-the-nation “we must care about everyone, we must save the nation”-style lyrics.
They were an angry band and they wanted everyone to know it. The short bursts of their singles, however, often made for very patchy albums. It was as if they did not quite know what to do with themselves once the beats and the bass had finished.
Setting Sons is the honourable exception to this rule. Rather than get it all out at once, it is as if Paul Weller has taken a deep breath, considered his subjects, his rage against them, why he feels this way, what he feels should be done about it and then taken his time to sort his thoughts out and set them to music.
The singles – Eton Rifles and Going Underground amongst them – still pack an almighty punch, a Weller Buckler and Foxton (there were three people in The Jam, always remember, and two of them weren’t Paul Weller!) going full steam ahead at the tunes, gunning for the class system and critics in alternate measures.
Here’s a new thing (pardon the pun) – Paul Weller has a sense of humour! Rather than being the dour, mod-ish, stuck-in-the-60s-in-music-and-attitude, Woking-bred old git that most of the media have always preferred to portray him as, Weller emerges here, on Setting Sons, as a considered and witty social commentator, someone who does not have the answer to all the world’s problems, never pretends to either, but is having great fun pointing out all the ways in which we have gone wrong (usually in trying to do right), all the ways in which we think (whether we might care to admit it or not) we are better than our fellow man or woman.
Songs such as ‘Smithers-Jones’ and ‘Saturday’s Kids’ bear sure witness to this, even 35 years on. The balance of both humour and anger (and a trip through all the grey bits inbetween) mean that, 35 years on, Setting Sons, is a very tight set still, taking you, the listener, on a proper sonic journey through the development of a band whose musical life was, sadly, all too short (and yet, have wisely, thus far, resisted the temptation to savage their musical legacy with any form of reunion). The highlights are the singles, for sure, but they have to fight for attention in amongst such strong fare as ‘Girl On The Phone’, ‘Little Boy Soldiers’ and ‘Burning Sky’, to name but a few.
The whole set has a very live sound, aided in no small part by the inclusion on the second and third discs of several live tracks and BBC Radio sessions. These all serve as both a welcome reminder of past nights out with sonic glory and alcohol for those of us old enough to remember being there fist time around and also as a fine document to younger generations of what they (almost) missed out on.
The balance here comes from the inclusion of such fantastic b-sides as ‘The Butterfly Collector’, in which the band tone down their normal mood of sharp and violent anger into something approaching thoughtfulness and melancholy. They do so without losing any of their edge or focus, which is some feat in a package numbering 60 tracks.
This, then, is a very complete sounding set, from both the original album and beyond. It shows the development of a band (and a man) from snotty young upstarts with attitude into that rarest of things – truly deserving and talented National Treasures.