Album review: Paul Weller, A Kind Revolution

When Paul Weller invited me to his dressing room for a chat, several years ago, I was struck by two things. He was wearing incredible shoes — gleaming, two-toned loafers he had personally designed. If they awarded Grammys for footwear, his mantlepiece would have been groaning.

But he was also exceedingly combative, picking me up on a poorly-researched questions regarding his political campaigning through the 1970s and 1980s (he didn’t see himself as an activist and, despite reports to the contrary, hadn’t manned the barricades to any meaningful degree).