Das soll hier nicht in einen „The Jam“-Thread ausarten, dennoch, vielleicht trägt folgendes Zitat von Dennis Munday, bei Polydor zuständig für The Jam, zur Klärung bei:
At the time, my German colleagues couldn’t really handle The Jam and they were switched over to Metronome, a much smaller label that PolyGram owned. They couldn’t do any worse than Polydor, and at least they were positive about working with the boys. They wanted ‚That’s Entertainment‘ as their first single, which was ok, as there were no plans to release it in the UK. During early January, I flew to the USA on business, and during the visit I phoned in and my secretary mentioned that ‚That’s Entertainment‘ was on the release schedule for January 30. This came as a surprise to me, considering I was responsible for scheduling their records and had no knowledge that we were going to release a new single. It was supposed to be a (very) limited edition German import with the B-side containing the live version of ‚Tube Station‘, which had first appeared on ‚Going Underground‘.
Now, there’s no doubting ‚That’s Entertainment‘ is a quality song and it would have made a great single, but the policy was always to release a new single after an album. They wanted to take a track of Sound Affects, to re-promote the album, and extract as many sales as they could and saw this release as an ideal opportunity. I was across the Atlantic and out of harms way, so they slid it onto the schedule. This really pissed me off, given the shit that I went through with Sound Affects, and I decided to do something about it on my return to the office. I also found it a little strange that John and the boys had agreed to it, as it was against their philosophy, and wondered how the company had sold them this pup. I phoned John and asked what Paul thought about this, and he told me he was ok with the idea – something I wasn’t sure of. Behind my back, the devious buggers at Polydor were treating ‚That’s Entertainment‘ like a full-blown single and imported it by the cartload. I went to see Polydor’s marketing manger, had a few words and found out they’d coaxed John into agreeing to the import with an offer he couldn’t refuse, that the band would make „loadsamoney“ from this single. I spoke to John again and told him when Paul, Bruce, and Rick found out they’d been taken in, they would go berserk, and firmly told him: „I’m going to knock it on the head now before it goes too far.“
My intervention brought the importing to an abrupt end and the single stalled at 21 in the charts. I had a meeting with Barry Griffiths who ran Polydor’s import department, and explained why it was being pulled, and he agreed to halt it, not that he had any choice. He was extremely pissed off with me, but as far as I was concerned, he was interested only in his department’s profit, rather than The Jam’s career. This business amazed me. I couldn’t believe that a major record company would behave like Del Boy out of Only Fools And Horses – mind you, the company certainly had its share of Rodney’s working there! Stopping this single didn’t make me popular, but I was single minded about The Jam and their career, although I was in the doghouse again, which was nothing new and to be honest, I didn’t really give a toss.
Dennis Munday: Shout to the Top. The Jam and Paul Weller: An Inside Story, Omnibus Press,London 2006, pp. 69-70.
Ansonsten allen viel Spaß mit der Sendung heute Abend.
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"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." - George Best --- Dienstags und donnerstags, ab 20 Uhr, samstags ab 20.30 Uhr: Radio StoneFM