That's Entertainment

The Jam (Polydon)

From the simplest of song-structures, a floating, wistful acoustic backing, Paul Weller and his cohorts have created something of ethereal beauty. The amount of overlaid embellishment retains and enhances this simplicity: dreamy backing vocals that echo A Day In the Life and, towards the song's end, an electric guitar striving in vain to slip through the acoustic wall.

Other than that, it is the Jam doing what the Jam (currently) do better than anyone else - Weller's plaintive voice wrapped around some ugly images, Foxton and Buckler carrying the rhythms perfectly through the song's peaks and lulls.

An immaculately rendered song, and a single of only slightly lesser dimensions. But a massive cop-out. Pulling singles off albums is the oldest sales trick imaginable, but when it's of such a sure-sales-fire (sic!!) nature as is so painfully obvious here, it reeks of contempt.

The previous Jam LP Setting Sons only had Eton Rifles annexed from it (actually, put on it). They could then have followed this up with something else off the LP like Wasteland, but instead went back into the studio and unleashed the flawless Going Underground. A risk but it paid off (literally).

That's Entertainment parallels Wasteland in -both track listing and stature, making its 45 appearance a big disappointment and an unnecessary irony.

The Affectionate Punch

The Associates (Stunn)

Stunn records continue their policy of making the otherwise-unobtainable readily accessible: The Cure, The Passions, now The Associates. The Affectionate Punch is, so the saying goes, 'from the album of the same name'. Derivative? This group sounds more like Bowie than Bowie himself does these days, turning the clock back to the time of Heroes. A tumult of dilated, Tom Verlaine-like guitar sounds wash over the instrumental attack, cancelling the 'Bowie clone' accusations before they have a chance to stick.

The lyrics aren't much help, either. They give the impression of having been pieced together ('Cut-up'? Bowie again) without any unifying vision or fusion. The Affectionate Punch draws blood, but conforms too readily to its own boundaries.

A thoroughly unsatisfying song, but not necessarily unfulfilled - it just doesn't slot nicely into any pre-conceived ideas, that's all. No reason to ignore it, and every reason to suss out the long player when the opportunity arises.

Paul Sheehan