Paul Weller Puts It Better Than Me

I make no bones about the fact I'm a massive Style Council fan. I was born in the 60s, a time of innovation and great music, so I was dismayed when the 80s arrived and we were bombed with electropop and synthesisers. To me, the Motown, Philly and Stax queen, this was aural abuse. To be truthful, I loathed everything about that era, from Thatcher, to the music, horrible hair and vile fashion. There was the diabolical Visage with Fade to Grey and Ultravox with Vienna. (Thank god for Love's Great Adventure - Midge Ure semi redeemed himself with that one). And as for Depeche Mode and Duran Duran - I just wanted to sit and weep, shaking my head in disbelief.

Still I found solace in Aztec Camera - thank you for saving my sanity Roddy! I also had various 70s heroes to fall back on - Roy Wood, Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Badfinger and Hall & Oates (yes really). But then one magical day something incredible happened. I turned on the radio and lord alive - I heard the unmistakable swirl of a Hammond! Mick Talbot and Paul Weller had only gone and got together and released the magnificent Speak Like A Child. Oh-my-word. Real instruments were back. I never thought the day would come when new artists (new to me anyway) would be playing Hammond organs, guitars and drums.

But to divert slighly. I was never into The Jam; I don't know why but the band just never resonated with me. I was therefore amazed and delighted when Paul Weller started showing a whole new side to his musical personality - the man had soul in bucketloads. I remember in the early 90s asking a work colleague if she liked Long Hot Summer and the answer I got back was a firm no. She belonged to The Jam clique and what Paul did with The Style Council was simply unforgivable.

As The Style Council, or TSC as we experts* like to call it, progressed, it became clear to me Paul had an agenda. I hadn't been that aware of his Jam output, so listening to the lyrics of Walls Come Tumbling Down knocked me leftwards; "You don't have to take this crap; you don't have to sit back and relax; you can actually try changing it" (that song has become an anthem of hope for me. I wish they'd re-released it for Occupy).

And this verse could have been written today:

Are you gonna be threatened by
The public enemies No. 10 -
Those who play the power game
They take the profits - you take the blame -
When they tell you there's no rise in pay"

The music business disturbs me now. Where are the voices of dissent on the radio, the questioners, the ingenius songwriters, the establishment kickers? When and how did we allow did Disney to replace Weller, One Direction to replace Costello and Rihanna to replace Squeeze?  We are being brainwashed into bland obedience but that's a whole other story.

*Me a TSC expert? Haha.