22 Dreams (2008)

By the time we get to 2008, well, a lot of time has passed since In The City in 1977. I really, really like 22 Dreams. Songs like "Have You Made Up Your Mind" and "Black River" - in fact, all 21 of these songs - highlight the rasp in Weller's voice, which I find interesting... I've listened to a lot of Weller albums now, and this is the first one where I'm not hearing a song where I didn't wish he'd toughen up the lyrics. These are all strong songs, and musically, there is a lot of tonal and dynamic separation between softer songs like "Empty Ring" or "Invisible", but Weller digs deep for the vocals. I have a feeling he probably wears his voice down touring, and that makes a difference when he goes into the studio. In any case, great album. Musically on point.

"Invisible" is perhaps the song I've been waiting for, with the same vulnerability and emotive content as "Life From a Window" or "Liza Radley", tempered by maturity.

There was a time
You thought every hair on my body was alive
And so it was
Now you can't even see
They're graying in time

As Is Now (2005)

There's a really good mini-movie about this period and album with interviews with Paul and the two Steve's. Paul had hit a bit of a writing block, so he recorded an album of covers, Studio 150, and then came back with this fantastic album. "From The Floorboards Up" is the perfect single he hadn't really produced since "Changingman", and not for lack of trying. I love Paul's introspective songs, but an album needs a single.

I believe this is the last album to primarily feature Steve White on drums, and although this is a solo album, featuring Paul on the cover, it feels like a cohesive band playing, from beginning to end. This really feels like a Style Council album, if you ask me; it doesn't break new ground, per se, but it finishes what he started with "Long Hot Summer" with "Roll Along Summer". Lots of good songs here, and I have added "Savages", "Floorboards Up" and "Come On/Let's Go" to my playlist.

Studio 150 (2004)

Pure blue-eyed northern soul. Beyond the Nolan Porter cover of "If I Could Only Be Sure", this is just all of Paul's influences, prominently worn on his sleeve. There's a live recording. It's really good.

Favourite track? I'm a sucker for Gordon Lightfoot, so "Early Morning Rain" works for me, but the Sister Sledge cover is also great.

Illumination (2002)

There is an instrumental at the end of the first side of Illumination called "Spring (At Last)", which is everything I want from Paul Weller, honestly, and after that, the second side really got to me. His voice, at it's best, is inspirational. I guess I gave this little thought until hearing it with no words, just a kind of chant, in "Spring (At Last)". This is by no means a gospel album, but like a lot of Wild Wood, there is a sentiment here that we should find ways to get out of our secluded anonymous city lives and find a new place and a new day where we can share our hopes and dreams, and it's quite beautiful.

So dance little dancer
Like you've never danced before
It's just a moment
We're going through
This is the new dance that we do
So sing little brother
And turn on everyone
Lift our spirits high
To a place we need to find

Overall, I feel like this album deserves a few more listens. "Push Button, Automatic" could just be the best song the Kinks never recorded. I love it. Speaking of brothers, I didn't realize that Steve White, Weller's drummer for all of these albums, is the older brother of Alan White, who was playing drums in Oasis, which probably explains why Noel Gallagher keeps showing up on Paul's solo albums.

Heliocentric (2000)

There is no drinking. After you're dead.

Abso-bloody-brilliant.

I had not previously listened to Heliocentric, and I have just loved every minute of it. It's frenetic and biting, and politely angry in a way that I had missed since Paul Weller's early days with the Jam. Songs like "Picking Up Sticks" come off like a cross between "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and some besotted Tom Waits boogaloo. I've listened to a lot of Paul Weller recordings up to this point, and I don't think I've enjoyed one this much since Setting Sons. The sound here is very raw in places, and in other places it's just plain weird. The drums are simply astonishingly good, and the whole band is shining. In many places, this reminds me of Curtis Mayfield's band, or even a band like Stereolab. This may not be Wild Wood, but it is impressively dense.

Naturally, this is one of his albums which is often panned.

Heavy Soul (1997)

I've got nothing. I've got a picture.

Honestly, I'll come back to this, leave it as a placeholder... but I listened to Heavy Soul and it left me with very little. Perhaps I was distracted. The things I wanted more of in Paul's first couple albums, songs that have more room to breathe and longer jam sessions, well, Stanley Road delivered on those and I loved it, and Heavy Soul brings them as well, and maybe now it's too much breathing room. I'll come back to this after Heliocentric. Anyway, this wraps up the 90s and the brit-pop era.

Stanley Road (1995)

Listening to Stanley Road after a few years is like running into an old friend - a bit awkward at first, but before long, the experience takes you back to the day you first met. And that's the point. The first two albums brought Paul Weller back to his roots, but with Stanley Road, he plants both feet on those roots and then builds something incredibly powerful from them. Whereas Wild Wood is a very personal album, Stanley Road leads off with "Changingman", a declaration that everything you hear is intended to be transformational.

And then, "Porcelain God" digs deep.

How disappointed I was
To turn out after all
Just a porcelain God
That shatters when it falls, yeah
When it falls, yeah, yeah

I shake it off and start again
Don't lose control, I tell myself
Life can take many things away
Some people will try and take it all
They'll pick off pieces as they watch you crawl

Early Jam songs like "Life From a Window" have given me a lot to think about, sure, but the maturity and wisdom in these lines, and above all, the self-awareness... really leaves you with something to chew on. Stanley Road has real substance. And the growl in Paul's voice in the Dr. John song "I Walk On Gilded Splinters"? It's what keeps me coming back.

Mick's back (in the final track).

Oh, and some Gallagher guy is playing guitar (Weller played guitar and added vocals to "Champagne Supernova" in return), Steve Winwood plays organ on a couple songs; Steve Cradock and Steve White. Lots of Steves.

Overall, with the possible exception of Setting Sons, this is the first album where, to be quite honest, I love each song more than the last.

Correction: "Wings of Speed", the track with Mick Talbot playing piano? Not my favourite. "Whirlpools' End" is a massive 7-minute extravaganza, and Stanley Road could have ended there. Still, I love this album a lot.

Wild Wood (1994)

The thing I love about this album, possibly more than anything else (and Sunflower is a cracker of a tune, there is a lot to love here) is how much Wild Wood evokes 70s mainstays like Crosby, Stills and Nash, Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young, Traffic... there's a dad joke here, and since a ridiculous number of Jam and TSC albums have dad joke names like "All Mod Cons", I'm just going to go for it: "Wild Wood? More like Winwood, amirite? Maybe it's just me, but I love Steve Winwood, and these songs remind me of Traffic or Blind Faith, and in a really good way.

The title track is deceptively simple, bittersweet, but never losing a sense of optimistic regret. But then it rhymes "justice" with "trust in", and it conjurs up Neil Young's Harvest Moon, and then it's paired with an instrumental which is nothing more an nothing less than a delicious two minute jam session, with a saxophone blessed wind down. I feel like Wild Wood is what Weller set out to accomplish with the Style Council. I have seen reviews which describe Wild Wood as not straying far from the ground that he was breaking with the Style Council, but I prefer to consider that perhaps this was an inevitable destination.

In much the same way I love Steve Winwood's organ playing on Talk Talk's Colour of Spring, I dig Mick Talbot's organs on "5th Season". Another song I immediately added to my playlist. Good for the soul.

And have I mentioned how much I love Steve White's drums? With every single album, he gets smoother. He reminds me a bit of Andy Newmark, technically perfect, technically ambitious with a complete absence of show-boating; but there are also several songs here that bring to mind that second Stone Roses album. Wild Wood gives these songs more room to breathe than Weller's self-titled album. I added "All The Pictures On The Wall" to my playlist as soon as I heard it. It's just perfect. I just love the way the lyrics alternate between an empty room, static pictures on a wall, and a clock that just keeps ticking away time. But again, the drums and bass here capture all of that mood perfectly. This is just a great rock album. There are moments when the Jam came off as pretentious; and there were moments when the Style Council didn't.

Wild Wood is never pretentious. It's neither more nor less than it tries to be. Captures a fleeting moment like a butterfly in a net, and then sets it free again. Really beautiful.

Paul Weller - self-titled (1992)

The eponymous debut. I've listened to this through from "Uh Huh, Oh Yeh" to "Kosmos" a couple times, and this is all really solid, although nothing really grabbed me, until I reached the final track "Kosmos", which is I think what I wanted most from the Style Council, and never got: a 5 minute song that takes it's time, with no gimmicks, no rap, no pontification or artsy piano pretensions. It's just a great song. But what I don't hear is an obvious single. "Amongst Butterflies" is a fun nostalgic look back at fleeting summer days, and finding spirituality in nature, which comes a bit out of left field, and it breaks down with some really cool jazzy saxophone, courtesy of Jacko Peak; in fact, the whole second side has a trippy, spacey feel, which is probably what I come back to most here. And again, Steve White is an amazing drummer. His rim-shot and snare work is just so crisp.

Waiting your time, finding the space, to be what'cha wanna be
Well just be!
Or the past will take you, keep you from the truth
As bitterness rises from the ashes of your youth!

Probably my favourite song from the album, "Bitterness Rising" reminds me a lot of a couple of the jams from the Stone Roses' Second Coming, and I think this is also my biggest complaint about this album. The music is great. The lyrics are okay, very nostalgic, and I love the lift-off countdown in "Kosmos" and subtle touches like that, but I really wish many of these songs were as long as "Kosmos", so the band gets more time to wind out.

I added this Lynch Mob remix of "Kosmos" to my playlist as soon as I heard it. Listening to the original album version, I found myself wondering what it would sound like if Massive Attack or Morcheeba covered it. This is what I imagine that would sound like.

Really great band playing. I suppose there wasn't a lot of opportunity to jam out live in the studio with Paul playing bass and guitar on most tracks. It's easy to get distracted by the lyrics, which are good.

This has the bones of a really good drum and bass album. It kind of reminds me of the Happy Mondays album Bummed... it's going somewhere, there's a direction there, but when some of the songs from the album were remixed, this became the future direction of the band.

Introducing The Style Council... without Mick

I'm listening to Paul Weller's first, self-titled, solo album now, and again I'm struck by what a great drummer he had with Steve White, who has some of the crispest fills I've heard; and it also strikes me that at least the first handful of solo albums were really following the same vein as the better Style Council tracks... except Mick's out.

You can see Steve White and Steve Cradock, along with the two Paul's (and Noel Gallagher), in this clip from the 1995 Help! album, which raised money for Warchild.

I'm looking forward to making my way through all 16 albums.

Modernism: A New Decade (1989/1998/2001)

Ironically enough, the dance-infused Balearic Style Council album that referenced a "new decade" was rejected by Polydor shortly before the Style Council were fired and disbanded, and went unreleased for... a solid decade. Like irony, modernism is a bitch.

I've been listening to this album a lot, and it's grown on me, a lot. It's reminiscent of a lot of music from this period, although I'd probably prefer to listen to the Happy Mondays, New Order, Revenge or Electronic. I'd probably rather prefer Bananarama, to be honest, but still. I'd put "Can You Still Love Me?" on a summertime mix, and the piano roll on "Sure is Sure"? It's really good, and Paul's crooning and howling has never sounded better. I want to give it to them that they discovered Chicago and UK Deep House many years before Bowie discovered Jungle.

Reminds me of George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice (1989) & Madonna's Ray Of Light (1998)... it *was* a really great decade. Also, fun fact about Peter Hook's first band after New Order: the name "Revenge" is a reference to George Michael's leather jacket in the video for "Faith".

In summary, The Cost of Loving is probably my favourite Style Council album (still), and I have discovered that my favourite song has to be "How She Threw It All Away" from Confessions (that flute), but my real takeaway from this experience is that if Modernism: A New Decade had come out in 1989 as planned, I probably would have listened to it A LOT, and been a better person for it. Different timeline completely.

Confessions of a Pop Group (1988)

Wow, I'm surprised how much I used to love songs like "It's A Very Deep Sea", which has beautiful lyrics, but listening to it now, Mick's piano comes off as the strongest element. Paul's voice sounds weak compared to, say Elvis Costello in "Shipbuilding", a song "It's A Very Deep Sea" resembles... a lot.

Not sure what to make of this. When I listened to this album years ago, I had not really been exposed to Elvis Costello. The songs on Confessions just sound kind of weak, but I think this albums just passes by a tipping point where the soul ballads outnumber the peppier pop songs. Perhaps the transition here is a good thing, too. The lyrics come through so strongly on this album. I just wish Paul sounded angrier. The lyrics are often quite bitter, but the overall tone is upbeat. I feel like this album is as ambitious as Setting Sons, but misses the mark for me.

Oh but, and I think this relevent, saxophonist Dick Morrissey, who also played on Peter Gabriel 3 and the Bladerunner soundtrack, plays flute on "How She Threw It All Away", my new favourite old song.

Perhaps he was just happy at the time. Can't really hold that against him. I mean, Dee C Lee sounds great.
Side Two picks things up a bit.

The Cost of Loving (1987)

By 1987, the writing was on the wall that hip hop and funk were taking over the music industry. I still prefer the brit-funk sound of Big Audio Dynamite, but The Cost of Loving really works it. You still have the straightforward pop songs, like "Heaven's Above", and the piano ballads, like "It Didn't Matter", but then you get grooves like "The Cost of Loving" and "Right To Go". If I had to pick a favourite sound from this album though, it would be the soft focus blue-eyed soul of "Waiting", which takes me back to Jam songs like "English Rose". It's a simple love song, with an easy to listen, easy to digest message:

I don't mind what people say
They always think the worst anyway
And if I'm wrong I'll pay the price
It's a cost that I don't count as sacrifice

Listen baby, I'm gonna love you anyway
I don't care what people say
I'm gonna love you, come what may
I don't care what people say

I do feel like I have a better (different) appreciation for the brilliance of artists like Curtis Mayfield because I experienced their music first through bands like TSC and the Jam.

This song sounds like it was written for middle-aged dads to sing along. I don't think we realized back in the 80s, but The Style Council we're very dad rock, irregardless of how edgy they tried to sound. Possibly this is the cost of loving. Okay, "Angel", the Anita Baker cover, and a duet with Dee C Lee, and I think by 1987 Paul and Dee C were married. Judging by the videos from this period, Paul was spending less time punting and bicycle riding with Mick. It was an awkward period, but they got through it. Lots of really nice horns on this album. Overall, however, if you listen closely, the star of the show is still Steve White's drums. He's a really a top drawer drummer. He's also married to Sally Lindsay, who played Shelly Unwin on Coronation Street, so that's something as well.

Our Favourite Shop/Internationalists (1985)

All of the things I liked about the Style Council in Cafe Bleu - synthy basslines, soulful singing from Paul Weller and Dee C Lee, and the occassional strange interlude from Mick, or polemical rapping - it's all here again. And I realize how confused I have been through the years because of the way the record label wanted to rename TSC albums for US release. The optimism levels here are very high. "Luck" is a great pick me up, reminiscent of "My Ever Changing Moods".

You caught me feeling all was useless
And left me feeling ten feet high

Our Favourite Shop was my favourite album when I listened to the Style Council years ago. Not sure if it still is. "A Stone's Throw Away" is a song that has stuck with me through the years... it ties early Jam songs like "In The City" with "Eton Rifles" and "Smithers-Jones". Trust the workers, don't trust the bastards in power, and so forth. Paul does sound incredibly sincere when he talks about what's happening a stone's throw away "in Chile, in Poland, in Johannesburg, South Yorkshire. A reminder, looking back, that this was the same period of apparent self- and global-awareness and class consciousness that brought us Live Aid.

Walls Come Tumbling Down at Live Aid - Paul sounds great here.

Songs like the "Stand Up Comics Instructions" are great. In a way, this reminds me of the spoken word stuff Mark Kozelek has been doing in the last few years. There's a polemic basis, and it's catchy, but the real star of the show in this case are Steve White's drums, which are fantastic. It's too bad this track was pulled from some releases under the belief that the blatant anti-racism might be misinterpretted because some people are unable to understand

Not a lot of videos from this period, but "Shout to the Top" is very good. Not sure I love Mick playing the piano standing up, but I love Steve White's grip"

satire. It's too bad. There are some legitimately poor choices made, such as Paul scatting along with the guitars on "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", and his french in "Down in the Seine" is problematic, but overall, I still love this album. I did not appreciate the drums enough.

Cafe Bleu/My Ever Changing Moods (1984)

Whereas several of the Jam's albums were clever plays on words, the Style Council's are more often than not just different in the US market, for some strange reason. My Ever Changing Moods is a great album. The title track and "Headstart for Happiness", "You're The Best Thing", bangers every one of them. I realize listening to these songs, however, that I liked Paul's old voice, and the way he chopped his words and bit down on his anger in the Jam. Dee C Lee is a great addition to the mix, and Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn from Everything But The Girl also show up on one track, "The Paris Match". The comparison I am tempted to make here is that Paul and Mick are trying at times to do a Simon and Garfunkel, and sometimes, they're just kind of trying. The video for "My Ever Changing Moods" tries very hard. It is bad.

I still find myself gravitating towards the singles I recognize, but the songs I really appreciate here are the slightly Satie-tinged jazz pieces like "The Whole Point of No Return", which as far as I can tell is a solo effort; and the odd politico-rap of "A Gospel", which made an indelible impression on me the first time I heard it. It's like the bastard child of Big Audio Dynamite and the Sugarhill Gang, and I'm still not sure what to make of it decades later. I guess that's my takeaway here... I may not be eating propaganda shit-spoon fed, whatever that means, but I'd probably rather just take the time to listen to Everything But The Girl or Big Audio Dynamite.

Introducing The Style Council (1983)

And here we are, on to the TSC period, and if I'm being honest, I have a hard time separating the songs I really like from this period from Jam songs like Beat Surrender, Bitterest Pill (I Had To Swallow), but in part this is because The Jam and TSC both recorded Solid Bond In Your Heart, a song which really epitomizes a romantic notion of determination and the bonds that connect us that runs through a lot of Paul Weller's songs. Anyway, the other members of the Jam went on to different projects, and Paul and Mick Talbot, ex-Merton Parka and Midnight Runner, connected over a mutual love of soul music.

Long Hot Summer is either a really bad song that I cannot help but like, or a really good song that I cannot help but dislike. Probably both. Whereas the Jam's videos were all essentially them playing live, the Style Council's videos are all essentially Mick and Paul acting out silly adventures. No one knows why. This one is truly awful.

Speak Like a Child and Solid Bond in Your Heart are great songs, both featuring drums by Zeke Manyika, who was also playing with Orange Juice at the time, and who would later join The The. After these first couple tracks, the Style Council lineup would settle on Steve White playing drums and DC Lee (formerly of Wham!) providing backup vocals.

I'm fuelled by the idea
That this world was made to share
But it never seems to work out
And all we seem to share
Is doubt and misery
I just want to build up
A solid bond in your heart

I like the sentiment. The parts of the Style Council I really like are the themes that often dominate Paul Weller's songwriting - loneliness, misery and doubt, married with a persistent optimism and an absence of despair. The world may be awful, but we can make it a better place. To push the earlier comparison, the Cure went deeper down the well of doubt and angst, and so did The The, and from a lyrical perspective, I miss the slice of life aspects of the Jam, which were replaced by a more philosophical outlook in the Style Council. And whereas by 1983, The The had recorded Giant, and the Cure had recorded Faith, two perfect 7 minute songs, TSC had recorded Long Hot Summer, and, like I say, I have rather "mick's feelings" about that song.

It does feel right to compare Paul Weller's output to Matt Johnson's, or Robert Smith's, or perhaps Edwyn Collins from the Orange Juice or Elvis Costello. They're all part of the 80s british invasion, but not quite new wave or new romantic. They all had an impact on the C-86 and BritPop sound.

Life From a Window

So that's August, and September is about to start, and I'm going to pace myself a bit with The Style Council. My favourite unexpected moment so far has been "Life From a Window" from This is the Modern World. As much as I love the later singles, this one catches my attention every time now. I love the sentiment that the world doesn't have to look any particular way... if you can raise yourself above it, that's the important thing, to see the whole picture, and turn the grey skies blue with teenage optimism.

For me, The Jam never quite fell into the trap of cynicism and satire the way TSC did, becoming more overtly political, which took away from the purity of their music. Their lyrics are often caustic, but stop short of becoming judgmental. In my head, I like to attribute this to the other two band members calling out Paul when he starts going off: "Oi! Oi!"

There are a few songs I feel like I've missed, too.

Speaking of songs called "Start" with a high saturation of "Oi! Oi!", I love the band Mega City Four so much. They put out a string of top albums before their lead vocalist Wiz left to join the Doughboys for a while and then form Ipanema. He later died from a brain clot in 2006, way too young. Great band.

"Liza Radley" was a b-side that tells a sad story of mental health, lost love, and not fitting into small town life. It's one of their most bittersweet songs, but it also reimagines the "Taxman" bassline - it was the "Start!" b-side.

It's quite perfect.

The Gift (1982)

To their credit, Bruce Foxton's basslines are as smooth and melodic as they've ever been on The Gift, and Rick Buckler's drumming is ferocious throughout this album, and on the non-album tracks like "Beat Surrender" and "Bitterest Pill I Had To Swallow". Listening to all six of these albums together, I expected to come away with Sound Affects as my clear favourite, but as it turns out, I have two takeaways (curries, perhaps). I love the ambition of both Setting Sons and The Gift, and I found Sound Affects less cohesive; and, my favourite Jam album is their greatest hits collection, especially if it includes b-sides.

Also, I have a strange obsession with songs which appear to be rooted in the Dr. Who theme, and "Just Who Is The 5 O'clock Hero" fits that bill. "Trans-Global Express" is just too weird, and again, Buckler beats the hell out of it. "Town Called Malice" is just a subtle reminder that this album is, unfortunately, just named after the songs, rather than a play on words, and I'm disappointed that the album wasn't called "A Town Called Malice". Oh well. Overall, though, this one just leaves me wondering why I don't listen to it more. Absolute belter.
It is possible though, that when this album loses me, it's because it is such a belter. A song like "That's Entertainment" hits you hard where it hurts because it feels desperate, in a way "Town Called Malice" doesn't, because it sounds so good. I miss the ballads of the earlier albums. Paul's lyrics work well with sparse instrumentation. This is great though:

A whole street's belief in Sunday's roast beef
Gets dashed against the Co-op
To either cut down on beer or the kids new gear
It's a big decision in a town called Malice

Professionally, I am working with TEI Publisher, and, well, it's quite impressive. In the past, I have worked with DITA and DocBook, which are less useful since the extra semantic tags in HTML5. TEI has a layer of precision that I find quite exciting. Hopefully this will be useful on my current project.

But that's it. These songs definitely are a gift, and I will be going back and adding more about the singles I missed, like "Going Underground". If Paul Weller had stopped after The Jam, that would be an impressive legacy. Obviously, that was not the case. Much of the overt politicization which I tend to attribute to The Jam is possibly better attributed to Setting Sons and a number of singles like "Going Underground", and many early songs that I have enjoyed are much more personal in nature, although songs like "In The City" or "This is Modern World" definitely contributed to the "youth explosion" vibe.

Sounds Affects (1980)

Just learned of the passing of Charlie Watts. I never really listened to the Stones, but wow, what a great drummer. Miss You

Okay, I was completely wrong about "That's Entertainment". The lyrics definitely demonstrate what Paul Weller is capable, but the glue here is the bass, which sits so up front. In a way, this song reminds me of R.E.M.'s "What's The Frequency Kenneth?" - a guitar song with cool lyrics in which the bass carries a ton of emotional weight, and a possibly backwards solo at the end.

The guitar solo in "Start!" may just be the guitar solo from "Taxman", but it's still so good, and I love the way Weller clips his 't' in "What you give is what you GET". Also, "knowing that someone in this life loves with a passion called hate" is very dark, but what a great line. I have always thought that "Start!" starts with "It's not important for you to know my name, but I do know yours", and it's actually "nor I to know yours", so there's that.
This should probably be my favourite Jam album, but I still love Setting Sons so much. Probably my biggest takeaway here is that the elements that I respond to so strongly in "That's Entertainment" - slice of life, working class consciousness, irony without satire - were all present in Setting Sons and songs like "Eton Rifles" and "Smithers-Jones", and there is so much more here than just Paul Weller's songs. He may say he wrote "That's Entertainment"

Maybe he just wanted to wish Keith Moon, who would have been 75 yesterday, happy birthday.

on his way home from the pub, but without the bass track, it would not be the song that it is.

Around this same time, Paul Weller played the main guitar riff on Peter Gabriel's "And Through The Wire" (alternate version), another great song, with an incredible chunky riff. Paul doesn't have the same vocal range Peter does, but they both draw on a lower register that packs a solid punch.

Setting Sons (1979)

Going Underground. What a great single. Overtly political, full of fey fighting posture and clever lyrics, not missing a single punch.
Almost the b-side. Hmm.

Perfect album. All I can say about Setting Sons is it's a more obscure play on words than All Mod Cons or Sound Affects. "Smithers Jones", "Wasteland", "Thick As Thieves", "Eton Rifles", "Saturday's Kids", "Burning Sky"... the musicianship is matched by the songwriting and the production, without losing any of the toothiness of the earlier recordings.

Wikipedia tells me that The Cure's Three Imaginary Boys was recorded using Rick Buckler's drumkit, because they were sneaking into the studio The Jam were using for Setting Sons. And there are some parallels. Three Imaginary Boys would have been a fitting title for the original concept of Settings Sons, about three friends from school diverging in thought politically as they make their way in the world. And both albums get kind of pulled apart for release domestically in Canada and the U.S.

All Mod Cons (1978)

 Two punk albums in, The Jam leave a lot of those trappings and accept the fact that the "Taxman" bassline has no place in punk, bringing us songs like the one-two punch of the 82 second "All Mod Cons" followed by "To Be Someone". Because the "Taxman" bass line is just that good. Listening to this album after the previous two, though... Rick Buckler's drums just sound so much better. In every song, the drums stand out. My favourite track is still probably "David Watts", with Bruce Foxton taking lead vocals, but again, because of the frenetic drumming. The paired vocals of the two guitar players is also very good. Their voices complement each other well.

"You're the same as him, you're like tinned sardines, get out of the pack before they peel you back..." Foxton could write a song lyric.

The stark honesty of "English Rose" stands out for me as well. It's not the strongest track on the album, but it highlights Paul Weller as a solo performer, and foreshadows "That's Entertainment". It also introduces a recurring Weller theme of the bonds that connect us and bring us back together. Following this with "In The Crowd" is pure genius, and so is "Fly", along with "David Watts", a personal favourite.

Also pure genius - this is when The Jam start using more dad jokes in their album titles and the classic font.

I often feel like the emotional centre of a great rock song is the bassline. When it goes up, we feel up. When it goes down, we feel down. Like those arrows on Paul's sweater on the cover of This is the Modern World, The Jam is a fine balance between the destructive emotional force of punk and the optimism of youth, and the tipping point more often than not is nostalgia - it may not get better until we tear it all down, but don't you remember how we used to meet down the shops, or whatever.

"Down In A Tube Station At Midnight" is just such a good song. Hard to imagine picking this up at a record shop and listening to it for the first time. It was very nearly an album track, but got pulled because Paul didn't think it was quite ready when All Mod Cons was released.

And I feel like Bruce Foxton brings this same balance between rich heavy bass riffs that descend more than they ascend and more melodic basslines that end in the neighbourhood of an octave up... not quite disco, not quite Entwhistle or McCartney, but extremely close. By the end of this album, I'm less likely to want to tear the system down, more likely to go meet people down the shops, and honestly, it's mostly because of Foxton's background vocals and foreground bass.

This is the Modern World (1977)

Long story short, This is the Modern World is the Jam's sophomore record, and it's tighter and more polished than In The City, but continues to overlay a punk sound with a very professional modern rickenbacker sound. In the time that it took the Sex Pistols to record Never Mind The Bollocks, The Jam recorded two albums, and honestly... taken together, they would be a great double album.

Again, the standout for me here is Bruce Foxton's bass playing, which brings a mature and aggressive edge to all of these songs. Weller's lyrics are really staggering at times in both their simplicity and complexity, for a lad of 18:

I've learnt to live by hate and pain
It's my inspiration drive I've learnt more than you'll ever know
Even at school I felt quite sure
That one day I would be on top

I love the way this lyric picks up the notion of the arrows on his sweater on the album cover. Every force is opposed by an equal and opposite force, whether it's youth vs. the older generation, right vs. wrong, the urban cityscape and the underground. The things that fill us with hate and pain in our youths will one day fuel our rise to the top.

Life From a Window, one of the slower songs, is one of my favourites here. It also sounds a hell of a lot like the Lemonheads "It's A Shame About Ray", and I think Evan Dando owes Paul Weller a debt of gratitude. The bass playing in the breakdown is extremely tasty, and the guitar playing provides another evolution of Paul's rhythm + lead style. Seriously though, I keep going back and replaying that bass guitar in the middle eight. It's softens the entire feel of the song, actually painting the grey skies into blue, a moment of optimism in a song that goes from lighthouses and post office towers to the depths of pessimism.

Some people that you see around you
Tell you how devoted they are
They tell you something new on Sunday, but come Monday
They've changed their minds

I Need You (For Someone) also shows off what a great drummer Rick Buckler is, but nobody is slacking off in any of these songs.

In The City (1977)

 

Okay, right off the bat, it's been a while since I've used blogger, and this may take some getting used to...

The Jam starts off with a banger. Songs like "I Changed My Address" and the title track really highlight what a smart move it was when Bruce Foxton and Paul Weller switched their bass and guitar responsibilities. I mean, it was 1977, so the drums sound kind of crashy... but the bass sound here is just perfect. At 18, Weller already sounds very intentional. The sound here is punk, but intentionally cleaned up and rethought. The lyrics are smart, about being young, but this belies a maturity that will continue throughout his career, a sense of nostalgia full of "fellows I used to know" and "women I used to see".

"Away From The Numbers" and "Sounds of the Street" are epic Who-pieces, slowing things down to consider heftier subject matter like... well, youth, freedom and nostalgia. "The Batman Theme" is a throwaway perhaps, but it's also a staple, a rite of passage, and a pure bass number. The centrepiece of the album has to be the title track, a social commentary piece about police violence that holds up well, and you can again hear the same intentionality in the way Weller enunciates the word "right-uh" - he has always had a great theatrical sense. My favourite part of this song, and this album, has to be this bit, following a scorching breakdown:

And I know what you're thinking
You still think I am crap
But you'd better listen man
Because the kids know where it's at

I love the way this encapsulates the false modesty and bravado of youth, followed up by a warning that it's dangerous out there, but keep listening, because the band will help you through it. There's a thousand things they have to say to you.

And if it don't work, at least we'll say we tried

Days of Speed and Slow-time Mondays

 When I first started this blog, for at least a couple weeks, it bore the name "Downing a Tubesteak at Midnight", which I thought was quite amusing... this is a mishearing of a lyric from The Jam tune "Down in a Tube Station at Midnight", a harrowing tale of getting roughed up in the London Underground. Anyway, it's been a while, and I'm trying to get back to my roots, so I'm going back to listening to Paul Weller. The way I see it, The Jam had six studio albums, The Style Council had five plus an ep, and Paul has 16 solo albums, so if I listened to and blogged on about one a day, that's about a month. I can find most of them as streams on YouTube, and I have several of the CDs. I mean, that's a lot of music. It's an impressive back catalog. And it's a plan I may give up on, but it's worth a go.

A few fun facts about Paul Weller to get started:

• Played guitar on a song on Peter Gabriel's third album.
• Played Come Together with Sir Paul on the Help! War Child compilation.
• Referred to Sting as a "F'ing twat".
• Originally played bass guitar in an early incarnation of The Jam.