1001 Albums Summary

For a 1980 release, The Jam’s Sound Affects bookends the first wave of British “punk”. Sonically unique, it starts off dabbling in the mod wave world of 50s/60s British invasion more than any of the other works of the “original punks”. Specifically “Monday” sounds like a middling Beatles throwaway mixed with the Kinks. It takes us on a tour of where British music had been up until now, breezing through the 60s and ending off in the psychedelic haze that followed in the early 70s. Songs like “But I’m Different Now” and “Start!” pick the energy up and start driving the album into Rolling Stones territory. It makes sense — this is the turn of the 70s after all. Songs like “Set the House Ablaze” brings with it a freshness, offering a peek at what punk might have to offer to the world in the 80s. This is the stuff of bands like Joy Division, who coincidentally released their first singles just a year prior to this album. It’s a bit like the chicken and the egg — would this album exist as it did before Joy Division? We’d have to listen to the other Jam albums to really be sure. Anyways, that isn’t the assignment of the day. The only song I’d been familiar with prior to my comprehensive listen was “That’s Entertainment”, a ska-influenced bass driven masterpiece which really ended up defining the state of punk in the 80s — a unique mixture of everything punk detested and was simultaneously influenced by. As punk “died”, folk rock, new wave, electronic and pop took its place. In a way, the song exists as a nod to the entertaining nonconformity that was punk prior. Even the band would begin to part from its Joy Division, Rolling Stoney roots and make jam band reggae after this album. The rest of the album is captivating albeit a bit unmemorable. You feel like you’ve heard it a bit in the songs before. But God, how crazy would it have been to have had this on tape when it was first fresh in the 80s — especially in England. Really, the whole album feels like being in a specific place at a specific time. Most of the albums of this era really do that for me, like London Calling by the Clash. It feels like buying your first beer for 25 cents and renting home for $5; Super8 film and calling someone through the landline. All those nostalgic things that you know but you never really knew … those things your parents were alive for but not really /there/ for. You wonder if they’d ever heard the song around on the radio in passing, or if they interacted with any of the things you would have liked in those times. Specifically “Man in The Corner Shop” and “Boy about Town” feels that way for me. All in all, the album is a classic and you can see why. Songs like “Scrape Away” seem to be co-opted and remixed by bands like The 1975, Shame or Fontaines DC in an attempt to say something. The sound and lyricism of The Jam seems to have been through many iterations by the present day. It’s no wonder — the album tells the tale of where life in the 80s, in Britain, in music and in the world was going — or where it went. It says something sonically (and at times lyrically) that songs today just don’t. Or rather, things that they just can’t yet. Out of 5, I’ll rate it a 3.8.

A classic! Love Andy Warhol and Lou Reed. Nico will pay for her crimes though. This album is so quintessential New York -- real beatnic Washington Square Park, West Village, hitchhiking from your small town in Ohio to get to the big city. Today's transplants will never know. You really do see its influences all over modern music -- from its contents to its cover. Venus in Furs is one of the best songs I can ever forget about; which makes for a real treat whenever I do remember it. Another standout on this listen is "All Tomorrow's Parties". It makes me want to throw a party at the Chelsea Hotel with all my it girl friends of the 70s that ends in someone jumping off the ledge (metaphorically of course). After this listen, I'll be revisiting the Patti Smith novel. This album reminds me how much I love New York. The New York that's always ephemeral and fleeting. The one that only exists in memories and stories in your mind.

Very new york in a different way... For never having listened to this album in full, it's very different from other 90s hip hop and rap which i have listened to before, with a more RnB influence. It's not hard to see why this album has held up as a classic over time, with middle aged white men claiming it's the best album of all time. Even Mac Miller had a sample of "The World is Yours" in his cult classic "Nikes on my Feet". Good flows, lyricism, thematic continuity, story telling, realism and a good beat. Finding out that Illmatic was Nas' debut album was shocking. Even more shocking when I remember that I lived down the street from Queensbridge. I couldn't imagine seeing what Nas saw then given the Queensbridge I know today. 3.9

LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS ALBUM! SO MUCH I HAVE IT ON VINYL! NEW YORK IN ANOTHER COMPLETE DIFFERENT WAY! DISCO! FREAKED OUT CUZ YOU COULDN'T GET INTO STUDIO 54! THE HEDONISM! THE 70S! NILE RODGERS PIONEERING HIS IMPACT ON EVERY SINGLE GENRE! BERNARD EDWARDS GIVING US THE MOST TIMELESS AND ICONIC BASSLINES E V E RRRRRRR. OH MY GOD! BLACK ARTISTRY AT ITS FINEST....... AUTOMATIC FIVES, NO ESSAY NEEDED. I WANT YOUR LOVE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SONGS OF ALL TIME. MY GOATS WILL NEVER BE WASHED! REST IN PEACE BERNARD!

Sad white ppl music