The Jam's enduring, eternal popularity in the U.K. meant an ever-increasing number of archival releases that cropped up over the years, with Live Jam, a fine counterpart to the other official concert album, Dig the New Breed, turning up in 1993. Like that earlier effort, it draws together a slew of tracks from shows ranging from 1979 to 1982, including some cuts from the band's almost-farewell headlining bows at Wembley Arena. Quite happily, there's no track overlap at all with Dig the New Breed, making the two perfectly complementary recordings in ways. The real treat, thanks to the expanded space on CDs, is the inclusion of nine songs from two December 1979 shows in London, the best portrait of what an actual specific show must have been like.

For those keeping score, Universal's 2008 Deluxe Edition of This Year's Model is the third expanded reissue of Elvis Costello's classic 1978 album. Like its 2002 predecessor from Rhino, Universal's expanded edition is a double-disc set, sharing many, but not all, of the same bonus material from that previously released package. Rhino shuffled off all the bonus tracks to a separate second disc running 12 tracks, whereas Universal adds ten tracks to the 13-track album on the first disc, then presents a full concert – recorded on February 28, 1978, at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C. – on the second disc. Of those 12 tracks from the 2002 edition, three of them have been excised – excellent Capital Radio versions of "You Belong to Me" and "Radio, Radio" plus a BBC version of "Stranger in the House" – while "Tiny Steps," which was included on the 2002 Rhino expansion of Armed Forces, was added.

Despite its rather cheeky title, Greatest Hits 1977-1990 is a good place to sample the entire Stranglers output. From the squalor of the late-'70s material, to the smoothed-out gloom pop of songs like "Skin Deep" and other mid- to late-'80s neo-goth rock, this is a solid anthology that values substance over style and exhaustive track selection. For sure, a well-edited Stranglers anthology is the only way to enjoy them; they recorded way too much dross to spend time searching out all of their plentiful, marginal records.

While mostly accurate, dismissing Never Mind the Bollocks as merely a series of loud, ragged midtempo rockers with a harsh, grating vocalist and not much melody would be a terrible error. Already anthemic songs are rendered positively transcendent by Johnny Rotten's rabid, foaming delivery. His bitterly sarcastic attacks on pretentious affectation and the very foundations of British society were all carried out in the most confrontational, impolite manner possible. Most imitators of the Pistols' angry nihilism missed the point: underneath the shock tactics and theatrical negativity were social critiques carefully designed for maximum impact. Never Mind the Bollocks perfectly articulated the frustration, rage, and dissatisfaction of the British working class with the establishment, a spirit quick to translate itself to strictly rock & roll terms. the Pistols paved the way for countless other bands to make similarly rebellious statements, but arguably none were as daring or effective.