Even in my Tiger Beat reading days, I’ve never been one for pop star crushes. Ok, well there was that brief moment as a 7 year old when I not only would go to sleep every night with Shawn Cassidy’s album cover under my pillow. I also drove my mom mad until she got me the baseball jacket, hat and short shorts in fire-red satin to complement the shiny white look Shawn favored then on the album cover and in Bandstand appearances.
But that could’ve been more about the fashion than puppy love, right?
Right?
Three decades-plus later, I find myself similarly smitten it seems with Paul Weller. And it’s as much about song as style. The Brtipop modfather is as cool now as ever, and his latest solo album, 22 Dreams, his ninth since those years fronting The Jam and Style Council, is worth every song. The summer release--featuring fanpeers such as Stone Roses’ Aziz Ibrahim, Oasis’ Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer and Blur’s Graham Coxon, among others— shot to number one on the UK Album Charts on its release this summer.
Noel and Graham were nowhere on stage at Wednesday night’s show at the Wiltern Theater in Koreatown. But that’s not why any of us would’ve turned out. It was all about Paul Weller, from his cropped blonde top to his winkle picker lace-ups to the solid two-hour set of amazing music.
Bow wow.