The Jags - The Best Of The Jags (1999)

Although the height of the punk rock movement had been a cultural phenomenon in late-70s Britain, daytime pop radio remained unwilling or immune to the music's charms: many classic punk records were subjected to bans, or simply complete indifference. Yet if the content of punk singles had not been attractive to radio programmers, the form would be -punk may have been terse, sharp and aggressive, but it was also infectious, concise and often tuneful. Furthermore, once the provocative fashions and imagery of punk and new wave had dissipated, its underrated successor of power-pop found plenty of outlets on the airwaves and in the charts. One such band who, albeit briefly, benefitted from this sudden enthusiasm for spiky three-minute nuggets was The Jags. Their Top 20 success with "Back Of My Hand" in the autumn of 1979 received fervent radio support, recognising an immediacy in the track which would in turn become unforgettable.

The Jags had formed in 1978 when Nick Watkinson (vocals) and John Alder (guitar), who had been schoolfriends in the Yorkshire coastal resort of Scarborough, met up with London bass guitarist Steve Prudence and drummer Alex Baird, a Glaswegian who had previously played in Stumble with a pre-Slik Midge Ure. Signing to Island Records, the quartet issued a four-track EP in July 1979, featuring "Back Of My Hand" itself and "Single Vision", which would subsequently appear on their debut album. The songs were reminiscent of those by the likes of Nick Lowe (of whom the band were said to be loyal fans), while Watkinson's edgy vocal invited comparisons with Elvis Costello.

With healthy radio play, "Back Of My Hand" soon charted, and by October had climbed to a peak of number seventeen. Prospects for the band's forthcoming album, EVENING STANDARDS (1980), looked encouraging, especially with reports that it had been co-produced by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes who, as The Buggies, had just topped the UK charts with the incessantly catchy "Video Killed The Radio Star". However, then came the news that The Jags' second single, "Woman's World", had failed to reach the top 40 and only just scraped into the Top 75.

Both EVENING STANDARDS and its follow-up, NO TIE LIKE A PRESENT (issued in 1981 and produced by Alex Sadkin, later to work with Grace Jones and Duran Duran) boasted memorable melodies, tight arrangements and crisp productions, but even with a keen awareness of both popular culture and pop tradition itself, critical notices were mixed, and neither album charted.

By 1982, The Jags had split up, but "Back Of My Hand" has remained a fondly-remembered power-pop classic and this compilation of their two long-deleted LPs, both appearing for the very first time on one CD, acts as a reminder that there was a great deal more to them than their one-hit wonder status might otherwise suggest.

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008

EAC extraction logfile from 19. July 2009, 6:06

The Jags / The Best Of

Used drive : PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-112D Adapter: 1 ID: 1

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface

Used output format : Monkey's Audio Lossless Encoder
Selected bitrate : Normal Lossless Compression
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Burrrn\MAC.exe


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
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1 | 0:00.00 | 3:45.25 | 0 | 16899
2 | 3:45.25 | 5:21.72 | 16900 | 41046
3 | 9:07.22 | 3:21.35 | 41047 | 56156
4 | 12:28.57 | 4:16.38 | 56157 | 75394
5 | 16:45.20 | 4:16.70 | 75395 | 94664
6 | 21:02.15 | 3:36.47 | 94665 | 110911
7 | 24:38.62 | 2:52.55 | 110912 | 123866
8 | 27:31.42 | 3:16.70 | 123867 | 138636
9 | 30:48.37 | 2:42.63 | 138637 | 150849
10 | 33:31.25 | 3:18.37 | 150850 | 165736
11 | 36:49.62 | 4:26.68 | 165737 | 185754
12 | 41:16.55 | 3:01.00 | 185755 | 199329
13 | 44:17.55 | 3:28.07 | 199330 | 214936
14 | 47:45.62 | 5:01.65 | 214937 | 237576
15 | 52:47.52 | 2:57.00 | 237577 | 250851
16 | 55:44.52 | 1:48.20 | 250852 | 258971
17 | 57:32.72 | 3:01.23 | 258972 | 272569
18 | 60:34.20 | 4:54.72 | 272570 | 294691
19 | 65:29.17 | 2:34.48 | 294692 | 306289
20 | 68:03.65 | 4:18.35 | 306290 | 325674
21 | 72:22.25 | 4:35.15 | 325675 | 346314


Range status and errors

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Filename C:\For Release\The Jags - The Best Of.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 0FDB2E68
Copy OK

No errors occurred


AccurateRip summary

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