This is the Modern World (1977)

Long story short, This is the Modern World is the Jam's sophomore record, and it's tighter and more polished than In The City, but continues to overlay a punk sound with a very professional modern rickenbacker sound. In the time that it took the Sex Pistols to record Never Mind The Bollocks, The Jam recorded two albums, and honestly... taken together, they would be a great double album.

Again, the standout for me here is Bruce Foxton's bass playing, which brings a mature and aggressive edge to all of these songs. Weller's lyrics are really staggering at times in both their simplicity and complexity, for a lad of 18:

I've learnt to live by hate and pain
It's my inspiration drive I've learnt more than you'll ever know
Even at school I felt quite sure
That one day I would be on top

I love the way this lyric picks up the notion of the arrows on his sweater on the album cover. Every force is opposed by an equal and opposite force, whether it's youth vs. the older generation, right vs. wrong, the urban cityscape and the underground. The things that fill us with hate and pain in our youths will one day fuel our rise to the top.

Life From a Window, one of the slower songs, is one of my favourites here. It also sounds a hell of a lot like the Lemonheads "It's A Shame About Ray", and I think Evan Dando owes Paul Weller a debt of gratitude. The bass playing in the breakdown is extremely tasty, and the guitar playing provides another evolution of Paul's rhythm + lead style. Seriously though, I keep going back and replaying that bass guitar in the middle eight. It's softens the entire feel of the song, actually painting the grey skies into blue, a moment of optimism in a song that goes from lighthouses and post office towers to the depths of pessimism.

Some people that you see around you
Tell you how devoted they are
They tell you something new on Sunday, but come Monday
They've changed their minds

I Need You (For Someone) also shows off what a great drummer Rick Buckler is, but nobody is slacking off in any of these songs.