This is the Modern Look at The Modern World (This Is The Modern World - The Jam)

Member Name: Wolfzilla

Product:	This Is The Modern World - The Jam
Date:	04/03/08 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The Modern World, In The Midnight Hour, I Need You, Standards

Disadvantages: The rest of the songs are all rather bland

Often regarded as one of the key examples of the 'sophomore slump', This Is The Modern World would be an album I went into with a different mindset than most listeners seem to. While I found In The City, the debut album from Woking's finest, The Jam, to be an entertaining enough little slice of Mod-inspired Punk fun, it was certainly far from the classic many fans made it out to be. Therefore I didn't have particularly high standards for This Is The Modern World to meet.

As was the case with The Stranglers, after the success of their debuted, which the record company didn't see coming, The Jam were quickly ushered into the studio to record a follow up, to cash in on the Punk craze, which the record companies figured would just be a flash in the pan. This meant that there wasn't much time to write songs, and even those that were written couldn't be given the same try-out as the material on the debut. To further complicate matters, the band's guitarist and lead singer/songwriter Paul Weller had the added distraction of a girlfriend, which, while seeming to dilute the anger that made The Jam's best tracks so powerful, also lent a new side to his songwriting, with This Is The Modern World also featuring a ballad or two in addition to the barbed lyrical tales of Britain through the eyes of it's youth.

Released in the immediate aftermath of the band's latest unsuccessful trip to try and crack the US market, This Is The Modern World only hit shelves around 6 months after it's predecessor, and when it did all it received was a critical mauling, and even today, fans regard it as by far the worst Jam album(although naturally, that's still about 10 times better than the worst album from Weller's follow up band, The Style Council), often seeming to ignore the fact that it isn't really all that bad actually...personally I don't think it's any more guilty of inconsistency than the majority of The Jam's albums, and I'm really unsure why it has such a bad rep.


I mean, the album may not be a classic, but it would be foolish to write it off. Some of the band's best tracks are contained within, and as with the debut album, I wouldn't go as far as to call anything on here bad.

In fact, to be honest, I can probably name more tracks that hold appeal to me on This Is The Modern World than I can standouts from In The City. From the opener and would-be title track The Modern World, which is really textbook Jam, Bruce Foxton's pounding bassline teamed with Rick Buckler's drum to form a fantastic rhythm while Weller throws some spiky guitar riffs and his lyrics which when not describing the world as it was, take time out to have a pop at critics, to the closing cover of Wilson Pickett's In The Midnight Hour, This Is The Modern World crams in 10 other tracks, which range from Jam standards like, well, Standards(one of the better examples of this actually, with some nice lyrics which reference Orwell's 1984), London Traffic, In The Street Today, London Girl and Here Comes The Weekend, mixed in with the ballad I Need You(For Someone), the slightly more introspective Life From A Window, the One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest inspired The Combine and Don't Tell Them You're Sane, as well as one of Weller's favourite poems turned into a song in the form of Tonight At Noon.

Out of all of these, my favourites would be the opener and Standards, for epitomising everything that The Jam were famous for being good at, and simply having better hooks and lyrics than their peers on the record, Weller's surprisingly heartfelt ballad I Need You and the cover, which isn't overly big or clever, but it's a fun song, and a good way to end the record.

As I said, I wouldn't call any song on the record bad, but the other songs just aren't that interesting. Here Comes The Weekend would be better had The Clash not already covered the same ground in 48 Hours, and while Life From A Window and Tonight At Noon help showcase a more mellow side to Weller's songwriting, it doesn't mean they are overly memorable songs, because the fact is, they're not. While he was still guilty of writing songs that sounded a bit on the same side, with the 60's Mod with an injection of punk sound comprising most of the band's early CV, but in hindsight, that's because its what Weller was good at writing. Sharp guitars, constantly active basslines and wonderful drumming may get quite repetitive after a while, but when Weller got the songs right, like on the title track and Standards, they are infectious, wonderful songs that almost make you forgive how much of a prat he seems these days.

Bruce Foxton's two songs, London Traffic and Don't Tell Them You're Sane felt the brunt of the album's scorn upon release, and I feel this was a little unfair. I mean, sure he went on to write much better, and the lyrics are pretty bad(in fact, in the case of London Traffic, almost hilariously bad), but to be honest, I wouldn't rate Don't Tell Them You're Sane much differently than I would Weller's The Combine, or even London Girl, I think Foxton was just a bit of an easy target for journalists, given that he didn't quite have the cred and already icon-in-the-making status of Weller, and was unproven as a songwriter. Incidentally, I always kind of liked Foxton's voice. Weller's somewhat well-spoken sounding voice delivering his 'real' lyrics was always effective, and when it takes a turn for the tender on I Need You it displays just how good a singer he is, but Foxton's rather monotone voice actually had a little charm to it. Granted this came to the fore moreso on the band's cover of The Kinks' David Watts(which appeared on the next album), but it adds a bit of variety to this album having 2 of his songs here.

Indeed, while I do feel the critics were perhaps a bit harsh upon This Is The Modern World, it is still, for the most part, a rather average record, but I don't feel it's any worse than In The City, nor really all that much of a step-down from it's follow up, the much lauded All Mod Cons. So, I guess 3/5 and a recommended is about fair for the album. It's not a bad record by any stretch of the imagination, it has it's entertaining points, it just simply isn't by any means great, or even very good. Fans of The Jam, Weller, punk and 60s R 'n' B will all find appeal in the record, even if it isn't the band's best work.

Summary: I wouldn't say this was a sophomore slump, but it certainly could have been better