TOWN CALLED MALICE – THE JAM

VIDEO ANALYSISThe Jam and a British band created in 1972 and fall under the genre of punk rock, mod revival and new wave. They were signed to Polydore Ltd, founded in 1913, a company owned by Universal Music Group. This record label signed other bands such as Slade, Bee Gees, and more recently The 1975, Lana Del Rey and Elton John.

In the 70’s, The Jam had shared their “angry young men” outlook and shared fast tempo punk and rock conventions in their music. They wore smartly tailored suits and incorporated 1960’s mainstream trends, fore-fronting them at the mod revival movement.

The video for ‘Town Called Malice’ was made in 1982, towards the end of their time as a band, and followed standard conventions of 1970’s and 80’s music video trends. Firstly, they used standard aspect ratio which was popular in the time it was created, however, is less common in the 21st century, where usually widescreen or cinemascope is preferred for music videos. The first 10 seconds shows multiple close-ups of the instruments being played making them music matching visuals in which Andy Goodwin claims is a convention of a music video.

Common conventions of the punk rock / indie rock genre typically in the 70’s and 80’s was mainly showing the band playing, as they were never as concerned about the success but more about their actual music, making their videos usually performance based. The Jam show this throughout their video as it’s all you really see, which also reflects the time it was made as it was following the usual codes and conventions of its time period.

Another topic from Andy Goodwin’s music video analysis is close-ups and focus on the star appeal, which is shown throughout ‘Town Called Malice’ as the lead singer is repeatedly shown through close-ups through the entire video, usually every few seconds a shot of him appears.

Looking at the relationship between the visuals and the lyrics, the song sounds upbeat, however the actual lyrics seem more miserable as they say “those rosey days are few”, “stand dying in the dairy yard”, “struggle after struggle” and “I’m almost stone cold dead”. The black background connotes the idea of gloom, sadness and struggle. Also, their movements are limited, as they only stay in the same spot it shows almost a sense of being apathetic.

At two separate points in the music video there's two signs shown, one saying “Anti Complaceny League! Baby!” and the other saying “IF WE AINT GETTING THROUGH TO YOU – YOU OBVIOUSLY AINT LISTENING!” which hint at the only form of visual narrative, however, isn’t expanded upon.