The Jam: Sound Affects [BACK TO BLACK/POLYDOR]

Why you'll love it

This Back to Black edition is a 180g remaster of the original UK album, with the illustrated lyric inner sleeve and a download code. Sound Affects reached No. 2 in the UK, and Paul Weller has called it the Jam's best album.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Remastered
• Illustrated lyric inner sleeve
• Download card included

About the album

Paul Weller once described Sound Affects as a cross between Michael Jackson's Off the Wall and the Beatles' Revolver, which sounds like a dare until you hear it. The Jam's fifth album, out in November 1980, took the mod punch of their early records and threw in funk bass, psychedelic touches and the wiry edge of post-punk bands like Wire and Gang of Four.

"Start!" borrows the bassline from "Taxman" with a cheeky nod to its guitar solo, and it became the band's second UK No. 1 after Weller insisted on it over Polydor's pick, "Pretty Green." "That's Entertainment" is a plain-spoken acoustic snapshot of everyday British life, "Man in the Corner Shop" looks at class with a warm eye, and "Music for the Last Couple" is the one track the whole band wrote together. They co-produced it with Vic Coppersmith-Heaven, the first and last time they took the producer's chair.

Record Mirror called it the best album of 1980, and NME and Rolling Stone have kept it on their all-time lists. The cover borrows its look from the BBC's old Sound Effects records, so if you've ever needed a hearse, a phone box and a power station on one sleeve, this is the efficient option.

Also at Kops: more The Jam on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Polydor, a reissue of the 1980 album.