This is a guest post from Jason Toon
Forsaken by its godfather, derided by critics, dismissed by the music press that inflated it into a phenomenon in the first place: the late ‘70s “mod revival” never really became the Next Big Post-Punk Thing. It never produced another band with the depth, range, and wider appeal of its biggest inspiration, the Jam, let alone ‘60s originals like the Who, the Small Faces, and the Kinks. After boosting bands like the Chords, main Jam man Paul Weller took pains to distance himself from what he saw as an unimaginative horde of louts in parkas.
And yet… though its attempt to take punk’s short-hair-and-sharp-songs aesthetic back toward the ‘60s was commercially doomed, the mod revival left behind a pile of great singles. It laid the foundation for C86, garage rock, shoegaze and other strains of ‘80s UK indie that eventually coalesced into Britpop. And after the mainstream attention faded, mod went underground, where it has survived to this day.
Cherry Red’s new four-disc Millions Like Us: The Story of the Mod Revival 1977-1989 is the best document yet of the mod revival. It’s missing the Jam, and leaves out Two-Tone ska, which offered a more socially relevant (and danceable) way for the kids of the time to engage with ‘60s style. But paradoxically, it’s actually stronger for it: without anything that a non-enthusiast would ever have heard before, Millions Like Us feels like a pocket universe of unknown pop hits.
Much more Mod revival, after the jump…