Though due to to time, place, and sound, the Jam are closely associated with the London punk explosion of the late ‘70s, their musical and extra-musical ethos were often directly contrary to punk’s year-zero outlook, paying open obeisance to ‘60s groups that punk sought to outright reject. Though they shared punk’s focused anger and political engagement, the band embraced the posh fashions, R&B influence, and speed-freak energy of the mod movement which, having peaked and ebbed a dozen years earlier, was tremendously passé even to non-cognoscenti, and singer/guitarist Paul Weller’s schoolgirl crush on the Who couldn’t have been more blatant.
 

Case in point.

So unpunk were the Jam considered in some circles that no less a Godhead than Joe Strummer of the Clash called them out as frauds in one of his band’s greatest songs, “White Man in Hammersmith Palais.” In the song’s second half, Strummer addresses disillusionment with punk’s direction, and the verse

The new groups are not concerned
with what there is to be learned
They got Burton suits, you think it’s funny
turning rebellion into money

has long been considered a direct stab at the Jam, who at the time had recently made a point of proclaiming a baffling loyalty to the Tories. (In later years, Weller would refer to Margaret Thatcher as “absolute fucking scum” and “a traitor to the people,” so don’t hold that early Conservative support against him.) Strummer demurely claimed he was taking aim at power-pop more generally, but the “Burton suits” line seemed mighty specific.

Keep reading after the jump…