The Jam was a British punk rock band formed in 1972 that was signed to Polydor Records. Their 1982 music video for "Town Called Malice" followed the standard conventions of 1970s and 1980s music videos, featuring the band playing against a black background. Throughout the video, the lead singer is shown in frequent close-ups. While the song sounds upbeat, the lyrics describe more miserable themes that are reflected in the gloomy black background. The video also briefly displays two signs but does not expand on any narrative.

1. TOWN CALLED
MALICE – THE JAM
VIDEO ANALYSIS
The Jam and a British band created in 1972 and fall
under the genre of punk rock, mod revival and new wave.
They were signed to Polydore Ltd, founded in 1913, a
company owned by Universal Music Group. This record
label signed other bands such as Slade, Bee Gees, and
more recently The 1975, Lana Del Rey and Elton John.
In the 70’s, The Jam had shared their “angry young men”
outlook and shared fast tempo punk and rock conventions
in their music. They wore smartly tailored suits and
incorporated 1960’s mainstream trends, fore-fronting them

2. The video for ‘Town Called Malice’ was made in 1982, towards
the end of their time as a band, and followed standard
conventions of 1970’s and 80’s music video trends. Firstly, they
used standard aspect ratio which was popular in the time it was
created, however, is less common in the 21st century, where
usually widescreen or cinemascope is preferred for music

3. Common conventions of the punk rock / indie rock genre typically
in the 70’s and 80’s was mainly showing the band playing, as
they were never as concerned about the success but more about
their actual music, making their videos usually performance based.
The Jam show this throughout their video as it’s all you really

4. Another topic from Andy Goodwin’s music video analysis is close-
ups and focus on the star appeal, which is shown throughout
‘Town Called Malice’ as the lead singer is repeatedly shown
through close-ups through the entire video, usually every few
seconds a shot of him appears.

6. Looking at the relationship between the visuals and the lyrics, the
song sounds upbeat, however the actual lyrics seem more
miserable as they say “those rosey days are few”, “stand dying in
the dairy yard”, “struggle after struggle” and “I’m almost stone cold
dead”. The black background connotes the idea of gloom, sadness

7. At two separate points in the music video there's two signs
shown, one saying “Anti Complaceny League! Baby!” and the
other saying “IF WE AINT GETTING THROUGH TO YOU – YOU
OBVIOUSLY AINT LISTENING!” which hint at the only form of
visual narrative, however, isn’t expanded upon.