![]() ![]() ![]() Hear the band perform two songs from the album-“Long Hot Summer” and “My Ever Changing Moods”-plus a highlight from their debut EP Introducing The Style Council-“Speak Like a Child.”Įarlier this month, Weller unveiled “Village,” the latest single from his forthcoming solo album On Sunset, out on June 19 via Verve Forecast. ![]() On this day in 1984, The Style Council performed in New York City to promote the release of their debut album Cafe Bleu (or as it was released in the U.S., My Ever Changing Moods). Read: Paul Weller-The Modfather Refuses to Quit Lee and drummer Steve White, were behind classic songs like “Walls Come Tumbling Down,” “You’re The Best Thing,” “Shout to the Top” and more. The band, rounded out by keyboardist Mick Talbot, vocalist Dee C. The former Jam frontman and accomplished solo musician isn’t necessarily best known for his ’80s soul group, but the outfit undeniably spawned some of the greatest songs of his career. But it’s not hard to wish that Paul Weller: Sounds from the Studio could have been more engaging.Some argue The Style Council were Paul Weller’s finest project. Reading this book may find you wanting to rediscover deep Jam or Style Council cuts that you may have forgotten about. Sounds from the Studio provides some entertaining tidbits and serves as a reminder that Weller’s fantastic musical career deserves more coverage. It’s also a puzzling thing to read so many passages about Weller’s fashion sense when the book is named Sounds from the Studio. As it is, it reads more like 22 glowing album reviews written in a surprisingly dull fashion. If Sounds from the Studio were made up of these kinds of anecdotes, it would be more fun to read. Guitarist Aziz Ibrahim, who lent a hand to The Stone Roses and later Roses singer Ian Brown’s solo career, is a little more complimentary to Weller than Gallagher but still has stories that rise slightly above the usual “Weller was a dream to work with!” variety. According to Gallagher, Weller can be a lovable procrastinator or a commanding stage presence with a bad sense of timing, depending on the story. For instance, for all his love of The Jam, former Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher has no problem ribbing Weller within these pages. These session musicians are quoted directly, and most of them say variations on something along the lines of “Working with Paul Weller is great!” Thankfully, there are a few variations along the way. So-and-so played drums, so-and-so decided to play the piano, and so on. But when it comes to the latter-day solo albums, Snowball sounds like he’s just rattling off facts from a session sheet. The amusing anecdotes are plentiful in the early days of The Jam and The Style Council. If you don’t like it, I guess you can just read the book backwards. This timeline is addressed early on in the book, but it’s never given a justification. Weller’s marriages begin with divorce and backpedals to serious dating. Musical trends go backwards too, taking you from acid jazz to mod-meets-punk. This is a little disorienting, since some members of Weller’s backing band get a proper introduction after you’ve already read about their involvement in chronologically later albums. Snowball tells the story backwards, starting with 2015’s Saturn’s Pattern and working his way back to The Jam’s 1977 debut album In The City (2017’s A Kind Revolution was too recent to make the cut). This would be an easier book to research if Weller ever wrote any filler songs. You don’t have to ponder this for long before realizing just how much music that is six Jam albums, four Style Council albums, and 12 solo albums. Ian Snowball gave himself the monumental job of discussing, at length, each studio album that Weller recorded under his own name as well as with The Style Council and The Jam. If you could pinpoint the man’s weakest solo album through some objective process, there are still people out there who can get pretty damn excited about it. A throwaway demo track by The Jam can be good enough for a Weller fan to swear upon while taking an oath in open court. After all, I’ve read some pretty nasty reviews of final albums by both of Weller’s old bands, but you can never say that they don’t have their audience. Now, I’m aware that musical careers are rarely without their peaks and valleys.įans of this particular veteran pop singer/songwriter can rightly take issue with my rhetorical question. ![]() When has Paul Weller ever not been on a roll?Įvery time Paul Weller releases a new solo album, which thankfully comes along quite often, I catch myself wondering if it’s possible for the former Jam and Style Council frontman to ever run out of ideas. ![]()
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