Product Description

Britain's a funny place, but not always in the literal sense. While apparently placid on the surface, in reality England has always had issues with class, race, and socio-political turmoil. In 1980 Margaret Thatcher had taken power as Prime Minister, and the youth culture that had usually reserved its disdain for the dominant Labour party had a compelling new target. Not so coincidentally, in 1980 The Jam released SETTING SONS, their strongest and most political album to date.
If The Jam's first three albums are a tribute to the resiliency of British working class youth, SETTING SONS is a call to arms. In the context of politically informed songs such as "Eton Rifles'" and "Burning Sky", even a cover of theMotown chestnut "Heatwave" seems to take on political connotations. The albums centrepiece, the haunting mini-epic "Little Boy Soldiers" leaves no doubt as to the intensity of Weller's ire, with its sarcastic references to shooting to killfor "Queen and country", and lambasting of United States support for Thatcher ("God's on our side and so is Washington"). Luckily the usual Weller hooks are there as well, so it'ssafe to hum along even without knowing what the fuss is allabout.

Track Listing

1. Girl On The Phone
2. Thick As Thieves
3. Private Hell
4. Little Boy Soldiers
5. Wasteland
6. Burning Sky
7. Smithers-Jones
8. Saturday's Kids
9. The Eton Rifles
10. Heatwave

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2403 in Music
• Released on: 1997-08-04
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Running time: 33 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The preceding album, All Mod Cons, had already proved there was more to The Jam than just being Mod revivalists, but it was Setting Sons that established Weller as a songwriting force to be reckoned with. The lead-off single "Eton Rifles" was Weller's most confident effort to date--a scathing look at class divisions in Thatcher's Britain. Originally planned as a concept album--The Jam's equivalent of The Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society--only fragments ("Little Boy Soldiers", "Wasteland") of this original vision survived, and the finished album centred on The Jam's customary guitar, bass and drums, although enhanced by fuller arrangements and production. The nostalgic "Saturday's Kids" is one of the highlights, and the album concludes with a breezy thrash through "Heat Wave". Fondly remembered as a singles band, Setting Sons is proof that The Jam also made some great albums. --Patrick Humphries

Customer Reviews

the jam`s best album...
..this was the trio at their best, my fave album by them..contains excellent tracks (thick as thieves, smithers jones and the most underrated jam track ever wasteland) go and buy it at this price it`s a steal!! and then buy all their other albums.

The Jam's best studio album....
Modern critical opinion suggests All Mod Cons is The Jam's best album. All Mod Cons is worthy of classic status but Setting Sons is the better album. The biggest compliment I can give is that The Eton Rifles (one of The Jam's very best songs) does not stand out - in fact Thick As Thieves pushes it incredibly close as best track on the album.

Another highlight is the wonderfully tuneful Wasteland but the whole album is fantastic. Tracks such as Girl On the Phone and Heatwave are sometimes criticised when this album is reviewed but I'm a big fan of these and cannot see why this album is not listed more frequently in best ever albums lists.

It is the best album from one of Britain's greatest ever bands.

The Jam cement their place as the most exciting band of the time.
This album released in 1979 when Paul Weller was a mere 22 years old was originally intended to be a concept album with a common theme running through it, that of putting away the childish and nostalgic things in life in favour of growing up and embracing the corporate world. Naturally, those who are familiar with Weller's writing will know that he laments the tendency to do this and his English nostalgia is one of his most notorious features. Some of the tracks on this album, such as Burning Sky, Thick as Thieves, The Eton Rifles and Wasteland are written in this mould and each comments upon this theme in some way. Legend has it that Weller intended the whole album to reflect this theme but he ran out of time and material and consequently filled the rest of the album with other tracks, many of which were essentially made up on the spot by Weller building upon bass and drum jams by Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler. The result of this are the inclusion of tracks such as Girl on the Phone, Private Hell, Saturday's Kids and Little Boy Soldiers which do not follow the same theme as the others. Knowing Weller's admiration for the Beatles and given that their Sgt Peppers album was originally intended as a concept album but ened up only half complete this may have been a deliberate emulation.

Nevertheless, the album is exquisite. The bass driven power of the harmonies show that Bruce Foxton was an essential contributor to the Jam sound and gone is the brash angst usually associated with bands of the late 70s, instead it is replaced by controlled guitar playing which loses none of the power but which shows Weller's emerging maturity as a player, loud and harsh is not necessarily better.

The real joy of the album however and what makes it stand head and shoulders above the other Jam albums are the lyrics. They are superb. Weller shows that even at such a young age he was a highly accomplished poet. The words of Thick as Thieves have been identified by the poet Simon Armitage as an exquisite example of British poetry, and quite righly so...

"We stole the love from young girls in ivory towers
We stole autumn leaves and summer showers
We stole the silent wind that says you are free
We stole everything that we could see...
We stole the burning sun in the open sky
We stole the twinkling stars in the black night
We stole the greenbelt fields that made us believe
We stole everything that we could see
But something came along and changed our minds
I don't know what and I don't know why
But we seemed to grow up in a flash of time
And we watched out ideals helplessly unwind..."

delightful!!!