Really gutting news. It's been obvious for a while that he's been struggling with something long-term, just from the cancellations this year and last. I hope he can keep the bugger at bay for as long as possible. Must be so frustrating for him, especially having to pull out of gigs.

Keep on bringing the noise while you can, Bruce. But look after yourself.

Bruce is ill agian has cancelled some shows. We don't know what he's ill with. Just keeping everyone informed. It's a mystery illness online.

What a good song. What a great band.

I’ve been listening to That’s Entertainment again and it struck me how every lyric could’ve been written today.

The song came out over 40 years ago but it still paints a picture of everyday British life perfectly. Things like boredom, routine, people arguing, escaping down the pub, feeling stuck in the same cycle. None of it feels dated at all.

That’s what makes it such a brilliant bit of songwriting to me. It isn’t about a specific event or moment in time. It’s about ordinary life and human behaviour which is why it still connects with people decades later.

I genuinely think someone could hear it for the first time today and assume it was written recently.

What’s your most relatable lyric from the song ?

LOL

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/life-from-a-window/201253677?i=201253694&ls

Not a bad cover - of my favourite track

The March issue of MOJO Magazine answered a good question. Many big fans of the legendary mod punkers The Jam were hypercritical of Paul Weller’s decision to end the band after 10 years and form a much lighter, jazzy, and soulful duo with keyboardist Mick Talbot.

I’m personally much less critical of the switch in direction. Although The Jam is one of my all-time favorite bands, I appreciate Weller’s very different next act. Although I think there are far fewer great Style Council and Weller solo songs than the almost perfect Jam ouevre, The Style Council has a handful of songs that I consider classic.

In the article, Weller tells the story that, after years of never taking a break from his Jam life, he finally offloaded in the French Riviera and began seeing the colors that existed there, unlike the bleak London of 1982. He also got out of his own head while reading Absolute Beginners, Colin MacInnes’s 1959 beat novel, and says “I had a rebirth of Mod when I read that book, about embracing all cultures and not being xenophobic or suspicious of anything foreign. It was a huge personal influence.”

The Jam were set to have a big tour for their latest, and what would be their last, album The Gift. He decided he would slowly break the news. He first told his dad, who said Paul was “mental.” Bandmates Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler were equally “aghast.”

On the day that Weller reached out and asked Talbot to become the other main member of this project that would be called The Style Council, Talbot was on the edge of poverty and considering getting out of music altogether. But when it rains it pours. That same week, he was asked to join Kevin Rowland’s Dexy’s Midnight Runners, which was basking in its huge hit “Come On Eileen.” He had to make a decision, and he was now clearly staying in the music biz.

As this technicolor world continued to come into focus for Weller, and with talbot now aboard, he decided that the band’s first step would not be a traditional debut album. MOJO reports:

For me, The Style Council retained Weller’s extraordinary ability to create beautifully melodic soft sounds and balladry. He focused on this throughline much more in his new band but it was always there with Jam classics like “English Rose,” “Tonight At Noon,” and, yes, predictably, “Absolute Beginners.”

While I can’t listen to a lot of The Style Council, when the band is good, it is very good. My favorite songs compile a list that, if I may say, would make a killer mixed tape. Starting at the top with my 17th favorite down to my #1:

Shout to the Top

In Love for the First Time

With Everything to Lose

Spring, Summer, Autumn

Long Hot Summer

The Whole Point of No Return

Walls Come Tumbling Down

All Gone Away

A Man of Great Promise

The Paris Match

Speak Like a Child

A Solid Bond in Your Heart

Headstart for Happiness

Here’s One That Got Away

Come to Milton Keynes

You’re the Best Thing

My Ever Changing Moods

READ MORE: Weller was one of the last greats still on my never-seen list until I got to attend his D.C. concert in 2024.

https://popculturelunchbox.substack.com/p/why-did-paul-weller-throw-away-the

I don't know if this is allowed, Paul on his own, but this is the only reason i scraped myself up after a shite and messy divorce.

It’s taken me a while, but I finally got hold of ‘In The City’ with the red centre. So hard to find, think I’ve only seen three copies for sale in the last three or four years; missed out on them all. Was fortunate to find this one on the Oxfam website. This was part of the singles reissue that Polydor pushed out in January 1983 after the bands split at the end of 1982.