A lot of people sneered at and derided Paul Weller's first post-Jam project, but I enjoyed the laid back, jazz influenced band that he put together with Dexys' and Merton Parkas' Mick Talbot,
I had a couple of the albums on vinyl, and the CD-R also in the case suggests that I added a second CD to this, with the missing tracks from those albums.
But we'll stick with the selections on this 'Best of' compilation, and I'm really enjoying it. All the Top 20 hits are there, as well as a few more, and it's an interesting listen. Kicking off with You're The Best Thing, then Have You Ever Had It Blue from the Absolute Beginners soundtrack (a latinesque rewrite of With Everything To Lose from the Our Favourite Shop album - a version I prefer), the full eight minute version of the funky Money Go Round, it's non-stop pop / soul fun (My Ever Changing Moods, Long Hot Summer (top bassline) and The Lodgers), onto the anthemic Walls Come Tumbling Down, a great song.
There's a bit of a lull with the reasonable Shout To The Top, the nondescript Wanted and the slow, more electronic It Didn't Matter, a monotone exercise in apathy. The band's debut single Speak Like A Child, is a pleasant couple of minutes, while A Solid Bond In Your Heart is sounding a little limp, as is Life At A Top People's Health Farm. And sadly, the rest of the songs on this compilation (Promised Land, How She Threw It All Away and Waiting) fail to excite.
Perhaps this compilation mirrors the patchy nature of the group's career, although the hostility from the music press to Weller trying something different wasn't helpful to the band. But there's certainly lots to enjoy here.
3* - Some great stuff here, but it's padded out quite a bit towards the end.
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