All Mod Cons

All Mod Cons
Studio album by The Jam
Released 3 November 1978
Recorded

4 July 1978 to
17 August 1978

RAK (Upper London) and Eden Studios
Genre Punk rock, mod revival
Length 37:28
Label Polydor
Producer
The Jam chronology

This Is the Modern World
(1977)		 All Mod Cons
(1978)		 Setting Sons
(1979)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]
Robert Christgau B[2]

All Mod Cons is a 1978 album by the British band The Jam, their third full-length LP. The title, a British idiom one might find in housing advertisements, is short for "all modern conveniences" and is a pun on the band's association with the Mod revival.

The album was more commercially successful than The Jam's previous album, This Is the Modern World. The single "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" was one of the band's most successful chart hits up to that point, peaking at No. 15 on the UK charts. In 2000, Q magazine placed All Mod Cons at number 50 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.

British Invasion pop influences run through the album, most obviously in the cover of The Kinks' "David Watts". The song "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" is a first-person narrative of a young man who walks into a tube station on the way home to his wife, and is beaten by far right thugs. The lyrics of the song "All Mod Cons" criticise fickle people who attach themselves to people who enjoy success and leave them once that is over.

Paul Weller admitted to a lack of interest during the writing/recording process, and had to completely re-record a new set of songs for the album after producer Chris Parry rejected the first batch as being sub-standard.

The album was released in the US in 1979, with the song "The Butterfly Collector" replacing "Billy Hunt".

In 2013, NME ranked it at number 219 in its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[3]

Track listing

All songs written by Paul Weller except as noted.

Side one

  1. "All Mod Cons" – 1:20
  2. "To Be Someone (Didn't We Have a Nice Time)" – 2:32
  3. "Mr. Clean"* – 3:29
  4. "David Watts" (Ray Davies) – 2:56
  5. "English Rose"** – 2:51
  6. "In the Crowd" – 5:40

Side two

  1. "Billy Hunt" – 3:01 (UK release)/"The Butterfly Collector" – 3:11 (US release)
  2. "It's Too Bad" – 2:39
  3. "Fly" – 3:22
  4. "The Place I Love" – 2:54
  5. "'A' Bomb in Wardour Street" – 2:37
  6. "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" – 4:43

*"Class issues were very important to me at that time…" said Weller. "Woking has a bit of a stockbroker belt on its outskirts. So I had those images – people catching the train to Waterloo to go to the city. 'Mr Clean' was my view of that."[4]

**Neither the title nor lyrics of "English Rose" were printed on the original vinyl release of All Mod Cons due to Weller's feeling that the song's lyrics didn't mean much without the music behind them.

2006 CD reissue bonus tracks

The UK version of the album was re-released on 5 June 2006 with a disc of bonus tracks, all of which were previously available with the exception of the demo versions of "Mr. Clean" and "Fly".

  1. "News of the World" (single)
  2. "Aunties and Uncles" (Impulsive Youths) (b-side)
  3. "Innocent Man" (b-side)
  4. "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" (single version)
  5. "So Sad About Us" (b-side)
  6. "The Night" (b-side)
  7. "So Sad About Us" (demo)
  8. "Worlds Apart" (demo)
  9. "It's Too Bad" (demo)
  10. "To Be Someone" (demo)
  11. "David Watts" (demo)
  12. "Billy Hunt" (alternate version)
  13. "Mr Clean" (demo)
  14. "Fly" (demo)

DVD


References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. ↑ Robert Christgau review
  3. ↑ http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/nme_500_greatest_albums_2013.htm
  4. ↑ The Guardian, 16 March 2009

External links