Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!: Day 322 - Snap!

Snap! - The Jam

Polydor

Released 14th October 1983

UK Chart #2

US Chart #201

Tracklist for Double Album and Free EP

 

A1 In The City    
A2 Away From The Numbers    
A3 All Around The World    
A4 The Modern World    
A5 News Of The World    
A6 Billy Hunt    
A7 English Rose    
A8 Mr. Clean

    
B1 David Watts    
B2 'A' Bomb In Wardour St    
B3 Down In The Tube Station At Midnight    
B4 Strange Town    
B5 The Butterfly Collector    
B6 When You're Young    
B7 Smithers-Jones    
B8 Thick As Thieves 

   
C1 The Eton Rifles    
C2 Going Underground    
C3 Dreams Of Children    
C4 That's Entertainment    
C5 Start!    
C6 Man In The Corner Shop    
C7 Funeral Pyre 

   
D1 Absolute Beginners    
D2 Tales From The Riverbank    
D3 Town Called Malice    
D4 Precious    
D5 The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow)    
D6 Beat Surrender

 

     Live! E∙P
A1 Move On Up (Live)    
A2 Get Yourself Together (Live)

    
B1 The Great Depression (Live)    
B2 But I'm Different Now (Live)*

*The Link is not the version that appears on the EP but an earlier 1981 performance 

It was also released as a Limited Edition Double Pack Cassette

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Usually between October and Christmas time record labels looking to make some easy money decide to release compilations of Greatest Hits or a Best of from some of their top selling artists and I thought over the next few days (and maybe into next week) I would share a few of my favourites.

We'll start with The Jam. In 1977 around this time in November they released their second album This is The Modern World (#22) and then in 1979 around this same period they released Setting Sons (#4), which was their fourth album.

With the group having broken up at the end of 1982 Polydor Records saw an opportunity for a career spanning compilation featuring all their singles, a few b-sides and a few classic album tracks to boot. And so in October 1983 Snap! appeared in the shops and was a huge hit on the album chart peaking at #2. This collection showed what a brilliant Singles band they had been (the label sensing this would later release two boxsets in 2001 comprising of all their singles (The Jam - The Singles 1977-79 and The Jam - The Singles 1980-82).

On release there was a Limited Edition Free EP recorded at one of their last shows at Wembley in December 1982 that featured their excellent cover of Curtis Mayfield's Move On Up and also the Small Faces' Get Yourself Together.

Just to show you how a record label continually seeks to make money off of its artists what follows is a bit of the history of the release/reissue of Snap! in it's various disguises and formats.

In 1984 it was reissued on CD as Compact Snap! But obviously due to time constraints only 21 of the original 29 were included along with (the tracks Away From the Numbers, Billy Hunt, English Rose, Mr Clean, Butterfly Collector, Thick as Thieves, Man in the Corner Shop and Tales From the Riverbank were not included).

In 1991 the album was reissued again but with a different title and also three tracks less than Compact Snap! (Smithers-Jones and Dreams of Children and 'A' Bomb in Wardour Street having been removed). To make it 19 tracks Just Who is The Five O' Clock Hero was also included and it hadn't been on Compact Snap! or on the Original Snap! album.

That's Entertainment (#21) and Just Who is the Five O' Clock Hero (#8) were hit singles in the UK despite not having been released here as singles. They sold well enough on import to actually make it into the UK Singles Chart. Both were released in the Netherlands, Spain, Norway and Germany (and Just Who is the Five O' Clock Hero was also released in Ireland).

In 1997 the Snap! album was reissued (again!) but this time the two of the tracks that were missing from the 1991 Greatest Hits album were included ('A' Bomb in Wardour Street and Dreams of Children).

In 2006 the album was once again reissued on CD (by Universal) but this time the original tracklisting of the Double Album and the Free EP were included in the 3CD set.

We don't always take notice of some of the sneaky tactics of record labels but I think with regard to this album it's very clear what they were up to!

Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!