Jam and Paul Weller

Tough and aggressive with Modern World and News Of The World, the album This Is The Modern World (Polydor, 1978) consecrated a trend.

All Mods Cons (Polydor, 1978) put an end to this adolescent phase and opened new horizons: in abandoning the mod overtones they favoured greater variety and a more adult rock. Down In The Tube Station , an anti racial lyrical protest, stems as a consequence.

In spite of a few aggressive roars (Going Underground) and a touch of sarcasm (That’s Entertainment), with Sound Affects (Polydor, 1980) the more danceable phase (Polydor, 1979) began, following the gloomy autobiographic concept of Setting Sons with the anthem-like Eton Rifles (Polydor, 1979) which had crowned them the more serious version of Kinks’s.

Weller distanced himself further from the early debuts with the singles Absolute Beginners (1982) and Funeral Pyre (1982), rhythmic experiments on a melodic and psychedelic theme. This sound, more rhythmic and pleasant, will take the exuberant Town Called Malice (1982) Bitterest Pill (1982), and the last single Beat Surrender (1983)all the way to the charts. The Gift (Polydor, 1982) revealed a group in search of new horizons, but failed on every front.

Then in 1983, at the pick of his composing abilities, Weller split the Jam up and with Mick Talbot’s back up on the keyboard he quickly formed Style Council.

With his first singles In 1983, (Speak Like A Child, Long Hot Summer, Money Go Round, A Solid Bond In Your Heart) Weller launched a new strategy, having distanced himself from the punk violence, he got closer to what had been the British songwriter’s speciality: to coin a white artist’s soul on the foundations of rock and roll. The public success was overwhelming and people elected Weller as one of their favourites.

Caf=E9’ Bleu (Polydor, 1984), known in America as My Ever Changing Moods (Geffen, 1984), left mainly the impression of ingenuity and confusion by moving among thousand styles (soul, jazz, funk, rap and rock) with a lack of direction, Headstart For Happiness, Paris Match and The Whole Point Of No Return, depending on taste, are either excellent Parisian night club scores or tedious, self indulgent moans. You Are The Best Thing, My Ever Changing Mood and Shout To The Top were hits in 1984 regardless.

In Our Favourite Top (Polydor, 1985), known in America as The Internationalists (Geffen, 1985) more suffered and sophisticated but also often plastered, Weller became candidate for the white dynasty of Martin Grave and Curtis Mayfield.

The exuberant Walls Come To Tumbling and Shout To The Top aside, the operation leaves you with a bitter taste: Boy Who Cried Wolf, Homebrakers and Internationalists were very refined ballads, produced with laborious perfection, but also not very communicative.

The Cost of Loving (Polydor, 1987) marked a moment of crisis in spite of It Didn’t Matter. But straight after his most ambitious album arrived, Confessions Of A Pop Group (Polydor, 1988) with his last hit Life At The Top People Health Farm, a long autobiographic suite in a noisy soul-funk style and a sequence of sophisticated jazz songs (entitled "Piano Paintings"), (the suite The Gardener Of Heaven in particular).

The distilled jazz arrangements of the latter left you the feeling that Weller had matured also as an author and was in desperate need of having his say on world matters ( see the torrential speech of the title-track).

Unfortunately the group’s luck had run out. The following album, New Decade Of Modernism was rejected by the record company, Singular Adventure contains all singles.

Weller threw off his mask (in other words the group) and started his solo career, aiming for a dignified reading of soul-pop (Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, even Prince). Uh Uh Oh Yeah and Into Tomorrow prove, one more time, his ability to tune to the more basic needs of his audience, but the 1992 album ( for Go Disc) also confirmed the frailty of his style, substantially still anchored to Style Council but lacking the great ambition of the last record.

Weller found his authentic voice with Wild Wood (Go Disc, 1993). With Weaver and Sunflower he aimed to savage the stern classicism of British pop soul (Winwood, Morrison, Stewart) but in the title-track and in All The Pictures On The Wall he used subdued chords in search of an introspection he had been lacking up till then. Can You Heal Us and Has My Fire Really Gone Out return Weller to the angst of the Style Council era.

Stanley Road (Go Disc, 1995) proceeded towards the same direction, even though, after recovering from the surprise it’s easy to detect the familiar downfalls, especially that wondering around the world aimlessly, that philosopher' s way , cockily blabbering on the fact he hasn’t got a clue about the meaning of life. Changing Man and Out Of The Sinkingthe new Despite the tour de force of production and the number of guests, the main value of the album is in the lyrics, and only if you like hearing the confessions of this "young Werther" of soul.

Heavy soul (Island, 1997) with Ocean Colour Scene’s backing has nothing more to offer than Peacock Suit and Up In Suze’s Room.

A weak and confused character, Weller remains nevertheless one of the singer-composers who was better able to interpret his generation’s anxiety.

Modern Classics (Island, 1998) is an anthology of the four solo albums.

Bringing back Nick Drake's arranger Robert Kirby on Heliocentric (Island, 2000), helps demistify Nick Drake, not enhance Weller's status. Weller is an intelligent, mature, adult, serious songwriter, but nothing more than a pop songwriter with a mediocre inspiration. The orchestral colorings are nice but do not increase the limited depth of his songs, and sometimes make them sound too bombastic. After listening to There's No Drinking After You're Dead (the standout), one starts missing even Eric Clapton. With Time And Temperance, Love-less and Dust And Rocks are not necessarily obnoxious: they are probably good songs, just performed by someone who is terribly obnoxious as a singer and arranger (check out Elvis Costello for more waste).

It's Written in The Stars is the highlight of Illumination (Independiente, 2002), and that is not a compliment. Mostly, his atmospheric soul ballads sound like lefovers of an old Van Morrison album (Going Places, Leafy Mysteries, One x One). But that was a masterwork compared with the cover collection Studio 150 (2004).

Catch Flame (2006) documents a live performance. As Is Now (2006) contains rarities.

22 Dreams (2008) is a complex balancing act of jazz (Song For Alice), folk (Light Nights), pop (Invisible), rock (Push It Along), soul (Empty Ring and Cold Moments), funk (22 Dreams), electronica (111), music-hall (Black River), and even instrumental kitsch (Lullaby Fuer Kinder), and, above all, strange hybrids that embody the middle age crisis (Echoes Around the Sun). One wonders how much the album belongs to producer Simon Dine though.

Wake Up The Nation (2010) has the usual dose of filler, but also some irresistible gems: the piano rockabilly Moonshine, the pub singalong Find The Torch Burn The Plans and the soul shuffle Aim High. The real highlight (perhaps of his entire career) is Two Fat Ladies, opened by a Who-style guitar riff and soon transformed into a demonic boogie dance. Weller also ventures into a diligent imitation of psychedelic pop of the Sixties with 7&3 is the Strikers Name, a cute hybrid of catchy refrains and dissonant guitar noise.

After two so confident rock albums, Weller decided to take a detour into stylistic experimentation on Sonik Kicks (2012). The results are mostly terrible, except for the electronic boogie of Green (eerily reminiscent of Chrome), the syncopated psychedelic soul of That Dangerous Age and the dub-techno with overtones of Sixties movie soundtracks of Study In Blue.