Defending The Indefensible : PAUL WELLER!

You can trash the man's entire post-Jam career but anyone who can come up with a single like Beat Surrender has earned permanent classic status.

Besides, everybody knows that Paul Weller in tight wool trowsers on TOTP in 1982 = way doable.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/mikejh/beat8.jpg

_The Bitterest Pill_ is some sweet melodrama c'mon!

and the unreleased 'house' album included in the SC box set? don't ask.

still: weller, classic, even if he's also got many duds to his name.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/05/10/sm_paulweller10.xml&page=1

When I ask what he spends his money on he rolls his eyes. ‘School fees…’ He had qualms about it at first, but all his children have been educated at private schools. Where he lives is not exactly the worst part of London, he says, but the local comprehensives were never an option. ‘I don’t want my kids coming home speaking like Ali G - I’m just not having it.’

thatsindefensible.gif

in the city is a RAD song

"paul weller continues to blight british music as a faux-hippie solo act to this day." -- jon savage, england's dreaming

(from the otherwise largely unbitchy discography! best line in entire book)

‘I don’t want my kids coming home speaking like Ali G - I’m just not having it.’

What a tool.

Red Wedge was a collective of British popular musicians who attempted to engage young people with politics in general, and the policies of the Labour Party in particular, during the period leading up to the 1987 general election, in the hope of ousting the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher.

Fronted by Billy Bragg (whose 1985 Jobs for Youth tour had been a prototype of sorts for Red Wedge), Paul Weller and The Communards lead singer Jimmy Somerville, they put on concert tours and appeared in the media, adding their support to the Labour Party campaign.

‘School fees…’ He had qualms about it at first, but all his children have been educated at private schools. Where he lives is not exactly the worst part of London, he says, but the local comprehensives were never an option. ‘I don’t want my kids coming home speaking like Ali G - I’m just not having it.’

Pinefox' secret identity revealed at last.

I blame Dizzy Heights.

Glad someone finally used "changing man" as a headline for a Weller article, though

Natt is a nightclub promoter who is also working on his own recordings (he shares his father's obsession with style - he describes himself as 'a cross between Marilyn Manson and Victoria Beckham'. Weller has described him as 'a Moth - a cross between a Mod and a Goth').

It would certainly facilitate pulling out the cork.

The Torygraph should perhaps do a Weller Tips For The Top: Where Are They Now? feature so that all Questions, Tracie, Stairs and Shootyz Grooves fans can be reassured.

AAAAAAH!!! HE COVERED SISTER SLEDGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :)

Oh this is the DOPE:

My night just isn't going to get any better than this. Goodnight, ILX.

There's no way somebody who has made the trilogy of fantastic albums from "All Mod Cons" through "Sound Affects" is by any means indefensible. Those were all ace.

These days his opionins on music are better than his actual own music.

Geir, have you not heard 22 Dreams? I think you'd like it, a lot.

"22 Dreams" is not at all bad. That is, at least most of the tracks are OK.

Speaking more of his albums from back when he was sort of a "spokesperson" for Britpop. He said a lot of great things in interviews, but his own music at the time was mainly boring blues rock, with way too much Free/Traffic and way too little Beatles/Kinks in it.

Monday, September 15, 2008; Washington Post Page C04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/14/AR2008091401883.html

From Paul Weller, Tasty Morsels of Jam

Combining the Clash's fury with the Who's flair, the Jam became the most commercially successful punk band in its native Britain. So it's all the harder for onetime Jam frontman Paul Weller, who performed Saturday at the 9:30 Club, to escape the legacy of that group -- even in the United States, where the Jam was never more than a cult attraction.

Weller's 9:30 set emphasized material from his nearly 20-year solo career, but was stoked by the promise of a few earlier numbers. If that formula seemed a bit coy, Weller's two-hour set could have been even more frustrating. He might have tried to reproduce the feel of his wispy new album, "22 Dreams," which dabbles in jazz, lullabies and electronica while reflecting on turning 50. Moving between guitar and keyboards, Weller plucked a few songs from "22 Dreams" but stuck to straightforward rock and soul tunes. During the first of three encore sets, the singer even teased the crowd with an unplugged version of the Jam's "The Butterfly Collector" and a snippet of the Who's "Magic Bus."

The audience was on Weller's side throughout the evening, especially when he played such up-tempo numbers as "The Changingman." Yet the biggest response came when the performer and his versatile four-piece band stormed into "A Town Called Malice," a strutting rocker from the Jam's final, funky period. Nothing could top that, not even the last of the many encores: a cello-driven rendition of the Beatles' "All You Need is Love." Weller had fought the Jam, and the Jam won.

-- Mark Jenkins

Wasn't worth the reprint.

No doubt the Jam could have done with more synths and drum machines (e.g. Simmonds).

What kills me about that Sister Sledge cover is his faux American accent, and above all the way he adds the word "sharing" just before the word "together". "Sharing" was not in the original version, and his voice with the strings just slays me. It doesn't bother me that he's more restrained than the original version, either. Playing to his strengths on this one, I think. Weller's got a mighty spotty career, but this one is stellar on his part, I think.

As I told Pfunk, I saw him live last week. I wasn't really sure what to think. He put on a spirited performance, and there were a lot of songs from 22 Dreams (his latest) but I reached a point when I'd had enough and I wanted to go. Later Pfunk sent me some stuff from people who were there complaining about the sound mix. It was a crappy venue, anyway. I guess I was naive to think he'd do some Style Council or well known Jam tunes in there. But even if 22 Dreams isn't perfect, I still really do love a few tracks off that a lot. Fave right now is "Invisible". Once again, I love his faux American accent (can I actually say that about any other UK singer? prolly not) and hell, you can even hear the noises of the piano in that, which is pretty special in my books. Weller is a tough dude. I mean, he's capable of some real greatness, and capabale of a lot of mediocrity, too. Take him or leave him, I guess.

Saw him play on TV the other day. I just cannot get past his hair.

Get him a gift certificate from a hairdressers for Fathers Day then.

i saw him in town recently. he walked right past a mod shop. no shit. just cruised straight on past the mod shop without going in. he obviously didn't need anything in the mod shop that day.

True story: Paul Weller pushed passed my GF in an off licence a few years ago. Still haven't forgiven him.

keep it in here please lads

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/moonraker_airlock_370.jpg

I think his recent stuff (i.e. 22 Dreams onwards) has been very good. You can pretty much split his solo career up into two eras, the first (Paul Weller up to As Is Now) is his Britpop period, if you'd like, and 22 Dreams onwards is a more confident version of his explorations in the late Style Council period, e.g. Confessions of a Pop Group.

he's all over robert wyatt's "shleep", which makes him all right in my book

and he's on Peter Gabriel's third album.

Just on "And Through The Wire".

Weller's trilogy of "22 Dreams", "Wake Up The Nation" and "Sonik Kicks" is his best stuff since The Jam. It's like he discovered he wanted to be Bowie. I haven't been as taken with his more recent work but I'll still check it out.

I've really found myself enjoying Saturn's Pattern recently. I wasn't sure about it at first, but now I really really like it.

this dude is a complete tosser, imo

As a person or musician? I used to think the latter but you gotta give his recent stuff a chance. Shocked me too!

that was just a tossed off (hah) comment, no problem with him as a person, but i don't like his voice or his music very much

ok having now half-listened to "pick it up" and "the ballad of jimmy mccabe"... it's not for me

Try "Wake Up The Nation", "Fast Car/Slow Traffic", "Green" and "Kling I Klang".

Aw, I really like 'Pick It Up' ...

I'll always keep an ear out, but buswise it's not a case of getting off as such, more a case of 'how many more Weller albums do you need? '

LOLZ...

he belongs among the greats: steve stapleton, yo la tengo, kid 606...
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, July 10, 2003 2:42 PM (thirteen years ago)

last paul weller i ever bought or listened to was the hot sound of "ghosts of dachau". that was enough for me.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17353241_1762068367440141_5528467336823693795_n.jpg?oh=b722886072356ac14b11c1c68d213291&oe=5967714F

Well, the "hot sound" comment is to describe 'Shout to the Top', which is one of The Style Council's best, IMO.

i don't mean this in a mean way but i kinda consider the jam a youthful pleasure. loved those records when i was a kid and would never play them now. which is a little odd because i still play plenty of the stuff i loved when i was a kid. and its not the stridency and super-serious nature of a lot of jam either cuz i still listen to tons of punk and rap and metal.

I can kinda see what you mean... I still get a lot out of Jam stuff whenever I'm in the mood for it, but their music was at its most potent for me when I was in my mid-to-late teens. Which makes sense given how old Weller was when he wrote and recorded that stuff.

This guy is having one of the best late-careers of anyone ever, and it's like there's a pill you get in England when you're a small child that makes you hate him (and nobody in the US knows who he is). New album is yet another great one. And I really don't like The Jam at all.

Like someone with a decent amount of talent decided to fill in the blanks of Bowie's late 70s discography. I've got no problem with that.

I've only listened to it once so far, but I really enjoyed it for the most part. I dunno if it's as good as Sonik Kicks or Saturn's Pattern yet, but Weller's work from at least 22 Dreams onwards has always blossomed with repeated listens for me.

I keep hearing insistences that he's actually gotten good again but as someone who found pretty much everything he did post-Jam to be insufferable or worse, I have my doubts. Then again I last checked in around 1999 or so. So what exactly happened, did he realize that all his attempts at raspy soul wailing sucked or what?

Yes.

tbqh, I liked the Jam, I loved (up to a point) the Style Council for being the first band that actually opened up and took on a broad canvas of styles, and liked them less when they settled for the Smooth Soul (along with the clothes) - If the "Modernism" album had come out at the time, I'd have loved them again but the "Cost of Loving" was a bore, and the "confessions" album just made me want to leave the room and do something more interesting instead. (When I played it in the car, it wasn't so bad but my journeys weren't as long as that side 2!)

At some point, I did invoke a "FGS! Paul, Reconnect with yr Small Faces e.p's will yer?", and funnily enough that happened.

Enjoyed the first solo one, but got less interested with each subsequent one. There's only so much Weller you need, unless you're one of those blokes that buys only Weller and his pals..

So, nowadays he's expanding his sonic palate like he used to. I might give each album a listen, but I don't need them really.

Oh, and that "Sonic Kicks" album cover was "Paul turns up at the school disco to pick up his kids"

There's a nice track w/Robert Wyatt on the new one

Like someone with a decent amount of talent decided to fill in the blanks of Bowie's late 70s discography. I've got no problem with that.

― dlp9001, Monday, 15 May 2017 01:12

I read that he particularly loathes Bowie. Apparently Weller has a goth son and a resentful Jam member compared his son to Bowie to piss him off.

I loved (up to a point) the Style Council for being the first band that actually opened up and took on a broad canvas of styles,

what

LOL, yeah, that was a bit of a bizarre statement.

I think he just meant that The Style Council was Weller's first attempt at trying to broaden his range.

Yeah, not the first band ever, gordeblimeys.

I was meaning more in the sense of bands from the punk/new wave, but even then that's a generalisation.

I keep hearing insistences that he's actually gotten good again but as someone who found pretty much everything he did post-Jam to be insufferable or worse, I have my doubts. Then again I last checked in around 1999 or so. So what exactly happened, did he realize that all his attempts at raspy soul wailing sucked or what?

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 5:20 AM (thirteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He felt that he'd taken his initial solo sound as far as he could take it by 2005 and decided he needed to change it up a bit, although I personally think he could have done with changing direction long before then. If you don't like his vocals on the stuff you've heard, I can't forsee you enjoying the way his voice sounds on his most recent stuff - his voice has become even more raspy since Wild Wood/Stanley Road etc.

This is the one I always play to people to try to explain that things have changed. If you don't like this, then probably safe to ignore everything I've said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxdLSv_Xbbg

^ I think there's better examples than even that. I mean, that one's got Bruce Foxton on it, so the chorus sounds very Jam-like (to me) but it's offset by all the other stuff.

Wake Up the Nation is my least favourite of the post-As Is Now albums.

Oh but I love "Wake Up The Nation" in part because Paul seems to be consciously avoiding sounds/styles that he's used to death in the past, c.f. the weird vocal quirk on the title track's chorus.

God, 'Shadow of the Sun' is fucking perfection.

His latest one (True Meanings) seems to mark a bit of a break from the type of material he's been doing over the last 10 years or so - it's basically more of an acoustic guitar led album featuring songs he's been stockpiling for a while because they didn't fit on other albums. There's some nice stuff on it ('Glide', 'Mayfly', 'Old Castles', the opening track) but it's quite a long album and all of the tracks are in the same mould, so it feels like more of a slog than it should. Hopefully it's just a detour and he gets back to making albums like Sonik Kicks and Saturn's Pattern again. The last 10 years of his solo career has had plenty of surprising moments.

Weller (appropriately) playing this week with this flag onstage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a8AItMybew