Sounds From The Junkshop #121 - Jet

 "Well I know that you think you're a star/But a pill-poppin' jukebox is all that you are" - Jet - Rollover DJ

Ah, poor old Jet*. There's an old saying along the lines of not building yourself up too much because it just ends with you having further to fall and of all the early noughties garage rock revival bands, you can't help but think of this lot when you say it. For about five minutes, these Aussies hitched a lift on the back of the garage rock revival bandwagon and seemed to be literally everyone's favourite band. Unfortunately once the scene crashed and burned, the ground fell away from beneath their feet incredibly rapidly and they went from critical darlings to a running joke with their name being used for a byword for sub-par bands of this genre. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, let's start at the beginning, shall we?...

* - Just to establish from the off that it's the Australian Jet we're talking about here, not the British late in the day glam band fronted by Andy Ellison in between being in John's Children with Marc Bolan and forming his new wave band the Radio Stars a couple of years later. That said, the UK Jet also put a rather good album out which we may cover on Garbage Days Revisited at some point. Anyway, back to the story in hand...

Let's be honest, Are You Gonna Be My Girl? was one of those songs you liked even if it was despite yourself a bit. Mixing a touch of Iggy's late '70s output in with AC/DC's rock 'n' roll swagger, it was one of those perfect pop songs that pretty much insisted you get off your arse and head over to the dancefloor. And I think that was kind of the key with Jet's first album - yes, it was incredibly obvious, dumb and lairy but it was also perfect for singing along to drunkenly after ten pints. And as the likes of Oasis will tell you, never underestimate that formula.

It's also to Jet's credit that they could easily have just coasted along on Are You Gonna Be My Girl? and packed the rest of Get Born, their debut album, with filler but it's actually pretty consistent and solid. Like I said, not rocket science but the likes of Rollover DJ, Look What You've Done, Move On and Take It Or Leave It were good efforts as well, bringing back memories of everyone from the Stones to Slade with a 21st century sheen. Like I say, you liked it despite yourself and the fact that everyone from the NME through Kerrang! to Sleazegrinder (Jet were one of the few new bands of that era who Pepsi Sheen, a writer who I've never made any secret was a big influence on my style of writing, used to sing the praises of) seemed to like them. I mean, looking back, it does sound a little bit dated and knuckleheaded now but at the time, Jet were simply a great band to bounce around to after a few pints at the rock club.

The problems for Jet started with the group's sophomore album Shine On which surfaced in 2006. Although it matched its predecessor in terms of chart positions and gave them one final Top 40 hit, the reviews were a lot more mixed. Most infamously, the album was given 0/10 by the Quietus whose review consisted of a gif of a chimp pissing in its own mouth - essentially the noughties equivalent of the "Shit Sandwich" line from Spinal Tap. Said review went viral and you could probably argue that things were never quite the same for Jet again as they would rapidly plummet into obscurity afterwards, not too dissimilar to how their fellow countrymen the Vines had a few years earlier after a disappointing sophomore effort.

(As a quick sidenote, the Quietus did seem to have it in for Jet right from the word go - they gave a pretty scathing review to Get Born as well, dismissing the band as a group of idea-free AC/DC copyists. Lord only knows what they must've made of Airbourne a few years later like...)

Now, let's get the obvious out of the way here - I don't really buy about Shine On being one of the worst albums ever (and if you are interested in my thoughts on that particular category of music then click on this link 'ere). Essentially, all that Jet were guilty of really was basically putting out a carbon copy of their debut album only not as good. And unfortunately times were moving on by this point - the garage rock explosion was rapidly disappearing in the rear view mirror and the likes of the Arctic Monkeys were now the big bands on the block. Jet would end up being dropped by their label Capitol and moving across to EMI for one last hurrah in the form of 2009's Shaka Rock but by now the critics had pretty much declared open season on the band and they were regarded as about the most uncool bunch of knuckleheads you could think of. While both of its predecessors had made the Top 20, Shaka Rock stalled just outside the Top 50 and by 2012, Jet were no more.

A bit of a shame really - if Jet had managed to put out something as good as their first album with a few new tricks on it then there's every reason to believe they'd have been able to keep on surfing the wave of popularity but, similar to the Hives, they were one of those bands who just missed a bit of a trick when it came to evolving their sound and consequently fell out of fashion pretty quickly. Not that it stopped them mind - after a hiatus, Jet would reform in 2017 and are still a going concern to this day, original unchanged line-up an' all. And even if Get Born hasn't aged quite as well as I was hoping it might've when I started this article, it does still bring back some fond memories of drunken nights out in my mid-twenties with me and my mates doing our best loose-limbed strut around the rock club dancefloor while Are You Gonna Be My Girl? was playing. And, like I say, even though Shine On isn't great, trust me, there are far FAR worse albums out there that I could point you towards if I was feeling really sadistic...mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa...