The Jam - The Complete Jam [DVD] [2004]

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Comprising singles, videos and live s spanning their five-year career, The Complete Jam 1977-1982 is comprehensive and absolutely essential viewing for any Jam fan. As well as containing all their greatest hits, from "All Around the World" to the austerely funky "Town Called Malice", it's an exhilarating and occasionally bizarre retrospective of a bygone pop age. The earliest live material, recorded for the 1977 punk programme So It Goes, is the most exciting; stark and grainy, conveying the sheer tearaway thrill and a sense of the impact the band had, coming on like the Grange Hill bullies hi-jacking the school band's equipment. They are more well behaved on Marc, the show fronted by the former T Rex star who announces them like he's announcing his own musical death warrant. There's also amusing footage of the band on a Swedish pop show, with Weller grumpily refusing to answer questions from the hostess like "Are Jam punk?" Some of the videos accompanying the singles reflect the naive self-consciousness of the early video age, some of the band's sartorial choices might make them wince now, and some of Weller's earliest lyrics don't bear up well to scrutiny. But this remains testimony to the imperishable greatness of a band who remained successfully aloof to some of the sillier vagaries of their day. On the DVD: The Complete Jam includes a "multi-angle scrapbook", a brief profile of the "Jam fan phenomenon" in which Weller-lovers mumble their appreciation over cups of tea, as well as a profile of the band's history, which is cobbled together from material already available elsewhere on the DVD. Some of the earlier footage remains unpolished but in the Jam's case that's a benefit rather than a drawback. --David Stubbs