Comments:
"Extras" is an extensive (app. 75 minutes) and somewhat uneven collection of Jam singles, demos and rarities. Some of the demos may appear be a bit raw and unpolished, while others are fine and great-sounding finished recordings; mostly B-sides.
In addition to many fine original Paul Weller compositions, there are a number of well-chosen cover versions of tracks from The Who, The Beatles, The Small Faces and others. Most of these originally came out as B-sides, but "new" are exciting versions of The Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing" and The Small Faces' "Get Yourself Together".
Among the demos, I find the tracks that were not originally released in finished versions the most interesting. "Liza Radley", "A Solid Bond in Your Heart", "No One in the World" and "We've Only Started" are well-written songs that could easily have become fine Jam tracks.
Quite a few of the B-sides are among my Jam favourites. This applies, for example, to "Tales from the Riverbank", "Smithers-Jones", "The Butterfly Collector" and the two The Who covers “Disguises" and "So Sad About Us".
This is a really exciting compilation with lots of strong tracks that show The Jam at their best. An objection could be that the collection may well appear somewhat uneven; perhaps it would have a good idea to distribute the tracks on two discs, so that the tracks with an obvious demo sound were on a separate CD – just a thought.
