Sound Affects

Product Information

Sound Affects is The Jam's fifth studio album and features the classic hit 'That's Entertainment' and the number one single 'Start! It wasn't until first hearing `Going Underground' in the early 2000's on VH1 Classic that I decided to investigate some of The Jam's music. What a stupendous mix of this record - there are sounds included on this pressing you never even heard on previous pressings.

Pardoning the overly snug inner sleeve, and the creased cover (which I knew about before-hand), this is a masterpiece.I'm 55 and have been enjoying this absolute gem of a record since it was released in my graduating year of high school in 1980. Noted musical influences on Sound Affects include post-punk groups such as Wire, Gang of Four, and Joy Division and, particularly evident in Rick Buckler's drumming, Michael Jackson's Off the Wall.

Still beloved of original fans and new supporters through Paul Weller’s solo career – he still plays many of the Jam songs in his live sets today. I personally don't agree - I don't think there's all that much between any of the final four Jam LPs. The 80 Greatest Albums of 1980 What came out of all this was, arguably, the greatest year for great albums ever". Buckler's drumming suddenly has a ferocity that I never noticed before in a dozen previous versions of this record. Sounds worthy in print, but marry talk of fighting fascists with a dangerous, paranoid guitar scrape and a whistled melody full of menace and the result is utterly thrilling.

From my readings, they will make a vinyl record out of anything - your pubescent brother's farts recorded on a Maxwell cassette can be made into an "180-gram audiophile record".

Not only are all the dynamics fully retained in this wonderful new remaster, but there has been a careful amount of re-equalization to correct from the midrange-heavy remaster from 2000. The cover art is a pastiche of the artwork used on various Sound Effects records produced by the BBC during the 1970s. A nightmare to remove from the inner cover, reproduced precisely the way you remember it with the lyrics, that the scissors came out. The song is also the only recording by the Jam to include sitar lines, which are buried in the mix, but are more prominent in the demo version. I am unfamiliar with any previous release that may have been remastered by him but if this is the kind of quality that comes as a result, Universal mastering should hire him to remaster the entire back catalog of the Siouxsie and the Banshees botched remasters.

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. I must say that I bought it because of the convenience rather than the extra tracks on disc 2, so I cannot really comment on it. A little disappointing that no 3rd disc was included to really tempt the fans - this could either have been a live disc from the legendary Newcastle City Hall gig (28/10/10) or a DVD of the complete German Rockpalast TV broadcast (30/11/80) - on both occasions, the band were at their un-stoppable best.

Ended up selling my copy of this, and the also-not-nice vinyl remaster, and picking up the original UK. Sound Affects was originally released in November 1980 at a time when The Jam was considered the biggest band in Britain. The distinctive cover art is a pastiche of the artwork used on various BBC sound effects records of the 1970s, incorporating ‘pop-art’ imagery. Instrumental track “Music For The Last Couple” has similarities to the sound of David Bowie's Low album. Sound Affects' is filled with so many great songs: `Set The House Ablaze' has a great whistle-hook, `Monday' has an attractive melancholy melody, `Scrape Away' is a strong and hook-filled album closer.Tellingly, when Weller came to record 2010’s Wake Up The Nation, it was Sound Affects that his collaborator and producer Simon Dine held up as a model. It may just be a list of simple things we’ve all done, seen or heard, with an ironic chorus, acoustic guitars and no drums, but so what? There are still eight unreleased tracks as well - all good (better than 99% of Blur's back-catalogue, anyway) though not quite of the calibre of the material on "Extras". Sound Affects sold over 100,000 copies and spent 19 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, rising to number two in late 1980. Mea culpa, Sometimes just have have to try it for yourself instead of formulating an opinion based on what you read on the internet.