#57
March 16 1984
The Style Council
Cafe Bleu
4.25 out of 5
Highlights:
Mick’s Blessing
The Whole Point of No Return
The Paris Match
My Ever Changing Moods*
You’re the Best Thing
Headstart for Happiness
A spectacular way to open the record, “Mick’s Blessing” tells you all you need to know about what you’re gong to get into here. The band can play, they’ve got the songs and they can’t wait to show them to you.
It’s a smart open because it’s followed directly by the brilliant coffee shop entry, “The Whole Point of No Return”, which, to me, show the bridge between the Jam’s frenetic mod-punk take and this moody-mods. It’s possible that Paul Weller is (one of) the greatest songwriters of the 20th Century but his disdain for that celebrity and inability to sit still keeps him from being the household name in America that he might’ve been.
Perhaps it’s the preponderance of instrumentals (Side One has three!) that kept audiences away. But Paul doesn’t care. He’s making the music he loves, music he grew up with, the soundtrack to a Europe vacation and he’s doing it with style.
At least on Side One.
Side Two opens with Hip Hop. You read that. “A Gospel” which is…let me put it this way…it’s no “Ant Rap”. Ugh, atrocious.
There are other missteps here as well, like the R&B Big 80’s Dance Jam Track, “Strength of Your Nature”.
However it fully recovers.
But, make no mistake. Like Body and Soul, which came out the same week, the air waves are being deluged with music for your grandparents.
*the version on the Apple Music release is the mellow, piano & vocal version, which could pass as a demo. For the full effect, seek out the single.
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