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DIG THE NEW BREED by Dave McCullough ©Sounds - December 1982

How much can you say anymore about a live album?. Very obviously DIG THE NEW BREED is a straight, no surprises live album. this is an affair between The Jam and their fans. within their own circle The Jam were too straight. DIG is, if anything, a dead end of a record justly placed at the end of a career. perhaps the sole blemish of The Jam´s career (horrible word!), was that the conservative streak of the Wellerian politik came too much to the fore. It is, in truth, trash and no tension. Celebratory anger does not get captured well.

We await a weirder re-emergent Weller, breeding the new dig.

DIG THE NEW BREED by Mark Cooper ©Record Mirror - December 1982

Inevitably this record is more of a souvenir than an art statement. The last Jam album is a gift for the fans, a spur for the memory more than a necessary record. The 14 songs remind you that The Jam live were always a punk band. This record captures much of abrupt fervour of those early Jam gigs. Some of your favourites will be here, some won´t. Few of the songs improve with live performance, they merely gain in attack what they lose in subtlety. The laying to rest of The Jam is the first exciting demise of a band since that of The Sex Pistols. This record is not as exciting as Weller´s decision, but it´s a nice reminder. Thanks for the memories.

Take no heroes! Some moments are to be treasured forever. Looking back it is the rise and rise of The Jam that is, more than anything else, a towering beacon on the hope against the present gloomy musical backdrop. What is inspiring is that The Jam have progressed so much and changed attitudes so visibly. Weller has shifted massively, away from the early casual youth anthems that pinpointed the division as young v. old, towards songs that deal with far greater ogres, far greater issues an issue as great as a ´class´. the point is this a change in attitudes is hope. And if you sneer at hope, you sneer at progress. Meantimes The Jam have split and left us with the hippiest of anthems. an album that frames all those nights of fire and accelerated passions, 14 tracks that chart The Jam´s heady progress. the difference between The Jam and all the hopeless pop ephemerality’s is the difference between a (red) harrington and an anorak. The Jam have style and significance. DIG THE NEW BREED is a sharp package. Maybe the last authentic mod record. There will be greater moments, sure, but for a while this one is great enough. Sublime sound, sublime vision The Jam were the best. Take inspiration!

Faced with this, the final Jam LP, the temptation to wax lyrical (not to mention boringly), about the group, their music and “What It All Meant” to thousands of people is obvious. They may have been ´about´ a lot of things Some great music, youth excitement and trust But as I remember it, The Jam always tried to look forward rather than backward. Words like honesty and integrity are words that have no real significance to the music business, but The Jam always tried to breathe life into them. The Jam always made more sense live simply because their belief and passion could be given proper breathing space. It is fitting that The Jam should bow out with a live LP, and one that takes a few chances, refuses to fit into the established mould of greatest hits regurgitated ad infinitum.

Quite simply we shan´t see their like again for a long time