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.