Nailing your colours to the mast one moment can expose you as a hypocrite the next. It was a problem Paul Weller faced early in his career.
The Jam's lead singer/guitarist spoke out in favour of the Conservative Party yet sang with disdain about the "Mr Cleans" who propped it up.
His band borrowed directly from the mod subculture with its upper-class pretensions, all but waving the Union Jack, while also profiting from radical punk's smash-the-State ethos.
It was all a bit confused, really, but then Woking's "modfather" was barely out of adolescence when the Jam's third and defining album hit the shops.
All Mod Cons (1978) captures that conflict succinctly, with Weller and the band's other songwriter, bassist Bruce Foxton, taking pot-shots at targets from all classes. And while some attacks seem more warranted than others, the real satisfaction in giving yourself over to this surly album lies less in the legitimacy of its assault and more in the laudable efficiency of its delivery.
This is where one of rock's tightest three-piece ensembles came of age.
Weller's jagged-edged Rickenbacker chops out chords, chugs along to carry the rhythm and flies effortlessly into short, bright breaks.
Foxton's bass lines are melodic, similarly rhythmic and at times complex, providing the all-important backbone to every song.
Drummer Rick Buckler is never flashy, making best use of every three-piece's most effective weapon - the uncluttered moment.
The much-heralded legacy influences are all there - the Who, the Beatles and the Kinks. But also there are influences of the day, in the band's response to social breakdown and thuggery ('A' Bomb In Wardour Street, Down In The Tube Station At Midnight), the gulf between aspiration and reality (All Mod Cons, Mr Clean, Billy Hunt, To Be Someone) and troubled romance (English Rose, Fly).
