The Jam: About the Young Idea Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The Jam: About the Young Idea Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 13, 2016

The Jam never really had much of a market impact in the United States, at least when taking their chart performances in Billboard into account. While all six of the band’s original albums made it into the Top 20 in their native UK, including four in the Top 10, with one of those coming in at Number 2 and another making it all the way to Number 1, in the United States, the band could only muster a relatively lowly 72 for their highest charting effort, 1980’s Sound Affects. Things are even worse when considering the band’s singles performances, with nary one entry in the United States, despite a rather impressive run of hits in the UK over the course of several years, a run which included several Number 1 entries (some which were ironially re-releases of earlier singles which had not fared so well the first time out). That fact may hamper some folks’ enjoyment of The Jam: About the Young Idea, for the band’s still potent following in the United Kingdom obviously experienced something more visceral back in the band’s seventies heyday than a lot of American listeners ever did.

The Jam may have seemed on their surface to have some quasi-punk tendencies, but as evidenced by both archival footage and contemporary sequences that find band members tooling through Everly Brothers’ classics, it’s obvious that the guys had more on their minds than rapid fire rhythms and raging against the Man. In fact, there’s a rather cheery, major keyed ambience to many of the group’s seventies material that is documented in About the Young Idea. This documentary does a great job of placing the band in their historical context, as well as providing ample evidence of how influential they were on a whole generation, sparking fans (including Sherlock: The Complete Seasons 1-3’s Martin Freeman) whose love for the band has continued unabated to this day. Bolstered by some fun and at times even touching contemporary interviews, About the Young Idea may well spark new interest in music fans on this side of the pond.

The Jam: About the Young Idea Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Jam: About the Young Idea is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. As is typically the case with these music documentaries which rely heavily on older archival material, there's a rather wide quality disparity between those sequences and the contemporary, evidently digitally captured, interview and performance footage. The "new stuff" looks largely flawless, with excellent sharpness and clarity, great fine detail in close-ups, and at times slightly underwhelming shadow definition in a couple of dim moments. Archival footage can look pretty ragged at times, with some fairly rough looking grain resolution and a generally soft looking ambience.

The Jam: About the Young Idea Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Jam: About the Young Idea actually defaults to the LPCM 2.0 track (as do many Eagle Rock releases), and that stereo iteration suffices perfectly well for the bulk of this enterprise. That said, the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track marginally opens up some of the musical sequences, albeit perhaps not to the levels that fans of contemporary music video and/or concert releases may be expecting. Nonetheless, fidelity is excellent on both tracks, offering great clarity and precision and no problems of any kind.

The Jam: About the Young Idea Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bonus Features (1080i; 38:36) offers a grab bag of vignettes and interviews that didn't make it into the final cut of the film.


• Bonus DVD contains The Jam: When You're Young (480i; 1:16:09), a tape of their Rockapalast Concert in 1980. Audio options include Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0, and DTS 5.1.

The Jam: About the Young Idea Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I frankly didn't know much about The Jam, other than that they were a precursor to The Style Council, and as such, I found About the Young Idea a rather interesting educational journey. What struck me is how weirdly happy these at least hangers on of the punk scene seemed to be back in the day, and that optimism is still very much on display throughout contemporary interview and performance footage. Fans of the band will also appreciate the bonus DVD of a 1980 concert performance. Recommended.