Seasons come, seasons go. Doesn’t much matter whether one features the sun and the other snow, or that spring and fall blur the boundaries between hot and cold. Paul Weller albums are reliable in the same cyclical sense. When was the last time his music didn’t do something for me? 2002, maybe, when Illumination failed to light my imagination—yet even that opened with “Going Places,” a contemplative song that I rank with his best.
66 sports a cool Peter Blake-designed cover and, like Fat Pop, is somewhat akin to a stack of wax, with the credits on each figurative 45 identifying such collaborators as Suggs, Dr. Robert (ex of the Blow Monkeys, not the Beatles song), Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, and some guy named Noel Gallagher. It’s available from the online Paul Weller store in a myriad of versions—vinyl, cassette and CD in both standard and deluxe versions, with the latter featuring four bonus tracks, plus a box set of 45s. However, thanks to my deluxe CD being stuck in a Heathrow queue, I’m writing about the standard 12-track version available on Apple Music.
The folky “Ship of Fools,” which features lyrics by Suggs, opens the set. It takes aim at the Tories (aka, for the Anglo-ignorant, conservatives), whose stewardship of the UK has, from Weller’s perspective, left the country torn asunder. One need not know or care about politics to enjoy the song-long metaphor, however; it could well be about the tech titans who wrecked the music industry or any number of other cretins. “Flying Fish,” which follows, finds Weller flopping about on shore due to life’s many distractions (“caught up in the thread/of plots we’ll soon forget”); anyone on social media will identify with it, I think. “Jumble Queen,” a collaboration with the literate Gallagher brother, spirals like a mini-twister, while the bluesy “Nothing”—another tag team with Suggs—and “My Best Friend’s Coat,” a collaboration with French singer/multi-instrumentalist Le SuperHomard, delve into love and friendship.
The soulful “Rise Up Singing” is another of those “Going Places”-type tracks that seems plucked from the ether, though this one began life in Dr. Robert’s imagination. The same can be said for the songs that follow, “I Woke Up” and “A Glimpse of You”; all three are accented by string arrangements courtesy of Hannah Peel. The mid-tempo “Sleepy Hollow,” on the other hand, benefits from vibraphone and flute. A collaboration with White Label, “In Full Flight,” takes to the sky to eye the state of things circa 2024: “Keeping faith is getting harder to do/in a world where lies become truth.”
“Soul Wandering,” written with Bobby Gillespie, sports a taut R&B groove while expounding on his wandering spirit: “Each day I wake and try to shake these chains from me/They weigh me down in mental quicksand.” The album closer, “Burn Out,” slows things down while pondering both life in lockdown and a relationship’s possible end. Has his fire really gone out? (Likely not—the lyrics were written by Scottish composer Erland Cooper.)
The sonic stylings on 66 aren’t as madcap as those found on Fat Pop; the songs mostly echo the contemplative True Meanings and its live offspring, Other Aspects and An Orchestral Songbook, and flow together as if a pop symphony, but with Hannah Peel in the role handled long ago by Nelson Riddle. It’s sure to hit home with longtime fans, especially those who have enjoyed Weller’s latter-day work.
The track list:
The Old Grey Cat 
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