Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. In the City [Album Version]
2. Takin' My Love
3. Art School
4. I've Changed My Address
5. Slow Down
6. I Got by in Time
7. Away from the Numbers
8. Batman Theme
9. Sounds from the Street
10. Non-Stop Dancing
11. Time for Truth
12. Bricks and Mortar
13. All Around the World
14. Carnaby Street
15. Modern World [Album Version]
16. London Traffic
17. Standards
18. Life from a Window
19. Combine
20. Don't Tell Them You're Sane
21. In the Street Today
22. London Girl
23. I Need You (For Someone)
24. Here Comes the Weekend
25. Tonight at Noon
26. In the Midnight Hour

Disc 2:

1. News of the World
2. Aunties and Uncles (Impulsive Youths) [#]
3. Innocent Man [#]
4. David Watts [Album Version]
5. 'A' Bomb in Wardour Street [Album Version]
6. Down in the Tube Station at Midnight [Album Version]
7. So Sad About Us
8. Night [#]
9. All Mod Cons
10. To Be Someone (Didn't We Have a Nice Time)
11. Mr. Clean
12. English Rose
13. In the Crowd
14. Billy Hunt
15. It's Too Bad
16. Fly
17. Place I Love
18. Strange Town
19. Butterfly Collector
20. When You're Young
21. Smithers-Jones
22. Eton Rifles [Album Version]
23. See-Saw

Disc 3:

1. Girl on the Phone
2. Thick as Thieves
3. Private Hell
4. Little Boy Soldiers
5. Wasteland
6. Burning Sky
7. Smithers-Jones
8. Saturday's Kids
9. (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave
10. Going Underground
11. Dreams of Children
12. Start! [Album Version]
13. Liza Radley
14. Pretty Green
15. Monday
16. But I'm Different Now
17. Set the House Ablaze
18. That's Entertainment
19. Dream Time
20. Man in the Corner Shop
21. Music for the Last Couple
22. Boy About Town
23. Scrape Away

Disc 4:

1. Funeral Pyre
2. Disguises
3. Absolute Beginners
4. Tales from the Riverbank
5. Town Called Malice
6. Precious [12" Version][#]
7. Happy Together
8. Ghosts
9. Just Who Is the 5 O'Clock Hero?
10. Trans-Global Express
11. Running on the Spot
12. Circus
13. Planner's Dream Goes Wrong
14. Carnation
15. Gift
16. Great Depression
17. Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow)
18. Pity Poor Alfie/Fever
19. Beat Surrender
20. Shopping
21. Move on Up
22. Stoned Out of My Mind
23. War! [#]

Disc 5:

1. In the City [#]
2. Time for Truth [#]
3. Sounds from the Street [#]
4. So Sad About Us [#]
5. Worlds Apart [#]
6. Billy Hunt [Alternative Version][Alternate Take][#]
7. It's Too Bad [#]
8. To Be Someone (Didn't We Have a Nice Time) [#]
9. David Watts [#]
10. Best of Both Worlds [#]
11. That's Entertainment [#]
12. Rain [#]
13. Dream Time [#]
14. Dead End Street [#]
15. Stand by Me [#]
16. Every Little Bit Hurts [#]
17. Tales from the Riverbank [Alternate Version][#]
18. Walking in Heaven's Sunshine [#]
19. Precious
20. Pity Poor Alfie [Swing Version][#]
21. Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow) [First Version][#]
22. Solid Bond in Your Heart [#]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #116902 in Music
• Published on: 1997
• Released on: 1999-03-09
• Number of discs: 5
• Formats: Box set, Import, Original recording remastered

Album Description
1997 6 x 12in five disc box with a whopping 117 digitally remastered tracks from 1977-1982: all the tracks from their six studio albums & every studio B-side chronologically sequenced, plus a fifth disc with 22 rarities, most of whichare previously unreleased covers, demos, alternate versions,etc. A Polydor release. The full title is 'Direction, Reaction, Creation'.

Customer Reviews

Buy direct from UK and get it for half this price!
Amazon's UK site has this same box set selling for £28.97. Under the current exchange rate that's about half what it sells for here, so even with the overseas shipping charge it's still a lot less money for the same product. Shop smart!

Just one tiny blemish.
The Jam were one of the greatest rock and roll groups in history. Their entire catalogue, from "In the City" all the way through to "Beat Surrender" is fresh, vibrant, urgent, and real. They were a band whose B-sides (such as "Smithers-Jones") could be the top A-sides of lesser groups. Nothing in their catalogue is worthless...not even their cover of the "Batman" theme! And they didn't just stay in one place after finding success. "In the City", their debut single, is rough-hewn, Who-derived punk rock. A million sounds and fusions of pop, punk, and soul later (the crunching "All Around the World", the bright but alienated "Strange Town", the driving, hard-hitting "Eton Rifles", the gorgeous anthem "Going Underground", the wistful Motown rave "Town Called Malice") we get "Beat Surrender", their bow, an uptempo, horn-and-piano-driven sophisticated soul scorcher. Along with The Buzzcocks, The Jam are at the top of the stack when it comes to singles bands of their era. And ANY era, really.

That said...there is one tiny fault. This is a fault only a completist fanatic would quibble about, but anyone willing to spend $100 on just one band is probably, like me, a completist fanatic.

The problem is this: one of the most acclaimed entries in The Jam's catalogue, and my personal favorite, "That's Entertainment", does not appear in its ideal form. The version from "Snap!" (known in CD release as "Compact Snap!") is nowhere to be heard. They include the psychedelic-tinged version that graces "Sound Affects", and they include some bizarre up-tempo demo on the "rarities" disc. But for some strange reason, they don't include their greatest rendition of "That's Entertainment". The version is minimal but has a fiery intensity that the somewhat muffled album version just doesn't have. There's a note written muttering about "another version available on the 'Snap!' compilation", but would it really have been that hard to include it?

Like I said...it's just one song on a collection of a hundred, and it might seem petty. But for someone hoping to capture The Jam's entire catalogue on CD with this purchase (ESPECIALLY my personal favorites), the disappointment was palpable.

But that's the only problem. Everything else is aces. If you're new to The Jam, I suggest you buy "Compact Snap!" anyway just to get acquainted with them. But if you've heard some of Weller, Foxton, and Buckler already and think this is the way to go, then it almost definitely is. I certainly don't regret my purchase. But it's just not quite perfect!

Contains Some Great Music
Collecting the Jam can be a frustrating thing. They cut some good material on EP's and singles that didn't make it to any of their six LPs, and there is no organized way to collate all of their material. This box looks on casual inspection as if it will do that job, but is actually not entirely complete. This contains the 45 versions of some songs, not the cut-later-for-LP and generally sharper versions - for example, the better version of "Start!", one of their best songs, is not present. It would have been easy for Polydor to include that handful of songs, and make this really complete. But they didn't.

It's worth going through the effort to collect these guys, because they were sometimes really great. Paul Weller was a gifted songwriter, engaging singer, and talented rock guitarist. Rick Buckler was a really gifted drummer, bursting with energy and precision, and Bruce Foxton held the bass slot down well. The material on this set, i.e. 95%+ of their legacy, is a mixed bag with a lot of mediocre patches. But the highs go very high; the band at their best were making timeless music. They go from a hard and fast punk band (with some soulful traction) to a blue-eyed soul band (with a bit of punk traction) over the course of the 6 years documented here. Weller's politics also seemed to change, from a conservative approach early on to a kind of knee-jerk liberalism. Both of these trends anticipate his future work with The Style Council.

My advice is to check out the greatness of this band via "Snap!" and/or "Greatest Hits", and then consider purchase of this set depending on your financial circumstances. There is definitely some timeless material present here.