Sound Affects

Product Information

I don’t think “wishing you were far away” qualifies as “finding beauty,” and I find that characterization rather condescending, in my always-humble opinion. It is therefore difficult to look at the album as inconsistent " virtually every track is memorable " even semi-instrumental "Music For The Last Couple" is memorable, though this time through it"s funky guitar and bass riffs. The original sounds much more dynamic, the sound is rich and full, each instrument and vocal track is clean and sounds great. S. late last year), it contains all of their single A- and B-sides, every cut from their six full-lengths, and every non-album EP track they recorded; in short, all of their studio recordings.

Love the energy, ADORE the whistling, but you’d have to have the hearing acuity of a moth to understand all the lyrics. The "album" tracks are less straight to the line, many sound like they were recorded in a dreamlike state, especially the droning "Monday" and the aptly-titled "Dream Time". Nothing gives you a better idea of an album's scope then its bookends, and "Scrape Away" is a prime supporter in this theory. I also don’t get the “modicum of soul influence” she heard—to me, this is The Jam kicking ass, end of discussion. Ended up selling my copy of this, and the also-not-nice vinyl remaster, and picking up the original UK.Why should inherited wealth give you more power than an artist who creates beauty or a nurse who cares for the sick or a social worker trying to address lingering social ills? Sound Affects" bore a lot less of a punk or mod influence than the albums that went before it, and was the first Jam album to not contain a cover version on it. Though I get where she’s coming from, I don’t entirely agree with Siebert’s identification of the similarities between “But I’m Different Now” and “Doctor Robert,” as the number of songs with two-chord riffs must be astronomical and The Jam are combining two straight chords (B/E) as opposed to Lennon’s more clever A7/Asus4 combination.

Beyond that, it doesn't illustrate any kind of career arc, instead offering a puzzle for the listener to construct.

Though it sounds like something Louis XIV could have come up with, I could find no evidence to connect the quote to anyone other than Paul Weller. This didn"t stop the album selling 100,000 plus copies and only being kept off the number one spot by ABBA"s "Super Trouper" album. More likely then not, "That's Entertainment" has given you an unfair judgment of the album not unlike The Cure's "Boys Don't Cry". Horns began to enter the mix on tracks like Dreamtime while Bruce Foxton's bass on opener Pretty Green was a distinct move away from the bolshy four-four of previous work.

There are as many references to post-punk bands like XTC (Music For The Last Couple or Scrape Away could be from that band’s Drums And Wires) and Joy Division as there are to the Beatles’ Revolver-era psychedelia. The fade features the voice of one Laurent Locher, bass player of Les Lords, a band of punks-turned-mods from Caen who drew a bit of attention during their brief existence but never really caught fire in La Belle France (or anywhere else, for that matter). Things get worse as he runs “through wind and rain, around this place amongst streaming sunshine,” then gets all sweaty-and-yuck while his “bowels turn to water.

The benefit of ignoring the boundaries of the albums is that you can hear how fluid the band's evolution was over the first four discs (the last is a collection of covers, alternates, and outtakes that falls outside the chronology).

Elsewhere there is the thick stereo rumble of "Set The House Ablaze" and the abrasive "But I"m Different Now", which is the only song from "Sound Affects" that sounds like it could belong on one of their previous albums. The cover art is a pastiche of the artwork used on various Sound Effects records produced by the BBC during the 1970s. Setting Sons would likely be up for the title if it weren’t for the casual inclusion of Vandella’s cover ‘Heatwave’ tacked on the end. It does wade into political waters, but it’s never apocalyptic, aggressively confrontational and angry as tunes on this record are. Paul Weller’s songwriting, and marks them out from their peers as seventy-nine becomes eighty and beyond.

Siebert’s claim that post-punk bands like Joy Division and Gang of Four had a greater influence on Sound Affects than the King of Pop is much more plausible. Boy About Town" on the other hand, is a chirpy, upbeat trumpet-enhanced tune that harks back to the band"s mod roots. We find Paul in that all-too-familiar dream state where you try to run from some sort of danger but the wires get crossed in your brain so you try to move your real legs, but HEY STUPID, YOU CAN’T RUN IN YOUR BED!