The Jam: Extras

This was the first compilation of Jam rarities, and at the time it was most welcome. It was hardly comprehensive, however, and cherry picks its material, all of which is from the 1979 Setting Sons era an onwards.

The notable inclusions are the full band version of Bruce Foxton's Smithers-Jones, which was infinitely superior to the odd strings-backed one that appeared on Setting Sons; the quirky, short spoken voice oddity of Pop Art Poem; the brassy Jam version of what would later become The Style Council's A Solid Bond In Your Heart; two fine, abrasive covers in The Beatles' And Your Bird Can Sing and The Small Faces' Get Yourself Together; the plaintive but appealing No-One In The World; the similarly bleak, piano-driven Hey Mister and the re-write of Tales From The Riverbank in We've Only Started.

The remainder of the tracks are stand-alone 'b' sides and demo versions of tracks that appeared on albums. Some of those "b' sides are high quality, like The Great Depression, Tales From The Riverbank, Pity Poor Alfie/Fever, The Butterfly Collector, Liza Radley, Shopping and two Who covers in Disguises and So Sad About Us. The covers of Peggy Lee's Fever and James Brown's I Got You (I Feel Good) are examples of the group's diversification towards the end of their career. The latter is surprisingly good. with a great Foxton bass line.

While the "alternate versions" are fine, the demo versions are superfluous and pretty much unlistenable, particularly the poor sound quality and feedback-drenched sound of Thick As Thieves. A handy trick in the age of digital music is to take these out when you play the album.