With the death of drummer Rick Buckler, chances of the mod revival powerhouse that was The Jam ever getting back together have gone from unlikely to never.  Front man, guitarist, singer, and songwriter Paul Weller — along with Buckler and bassist / singer, songwriter Bruce Foxton — crafted some of the catchiest pop songs of the punk / post-punk / new wave era. But Weller consciously chose to disband The Jam in 1982. Sadly, Buckler and Foxton seemed to want a reunion, but as Buckler would put it in a 2017 interview, “I think Paul came up with all sorts of funny ideas about how it would make the band mean something if we split it up.”

Formed in Surrey, England in 1972, The Jam released their first single, “In the City,” in 1977. It reached #40 on the UK Singles chart and was the start of an incredible streak. Their next 17 singles would chart in the UK. Among them, 1980’s “Going Underground,” would be their first number one. They would have three more: “Start!” “Town Called Malice,” and “Beat Surrender.” When The Jam disbanded, their first fifteen singles were re-released. All placed within the top 100.

While not as shocking like contemporaries The Sex Pistols, angry as The Clash, or gloomy like Joy Division (with whom they shared a stage on a 1979 airing of “Something Else”), The Jam were just as culturally relevant as those bands; they were at the forefront of a mod revival, and among the only artists of that period with a punk pedigree that still possesed pure power pop sensibilities.

Beneath “Start!” there’s a Paul McCartney-esque bass-line. In the rhythmic beat and trilling organ of “Town Called Malice,” one can clearly hear Mowtown. And on covers of The Beatles’ “And Your Bird Can Sing,” The Who’s “So Sad About Us,” and The Kinks’ “David Watts,” there’s tribute to the mods that inspired them.

Tailored suits. Two-toned brogues. A Rickenbacker guitar covered in comic art. The Jam were at the center of a mod revival. Beat music with the energy of punk. Melody. Harmony. Politics. Fashion. Rock and roll. Rhythm and blues. Undeniably catchy and undeniably cool. The Jam’s influence on indie music has been cited by artists like Oasis, Blur, and The Strokes. Any discussion of mod culture of the twentieth century must include them. The mod style did not stop with the end of the 1960s. It merely evolved.

Weller would go on to form the less influential and all but forgotten Style Council upon The Jam’s breakup in 1982. He vowed that The Jam would never reunite. It’s “against everything we stand for,” said Weller in a 2015 interview with The Daily Mirror.

With Buckler’s death, it looks ike he was right.