Paul Weller tends to be more misunderstood than most. It’s deeply ironic that the man responsible for some of the most innovative music of the past 40 years is so often reduced to the lazy epithet of The Modfather.
His career has spanned punk, R&B, psychedelia, folk-soul, jazz, electronica and avant-rock, a spectrum that runs from brutish noise to semi-orchestral repose. “I never, ever wanted to be the Rolling Stones,” Weller once said. “Bless their hearts, but I don’t necessarily want to go on doing the same old thing.”
This bullish determination to keep challenging himself has been the defining thread in Weller’s career. His earliest obsessions – the Small Faces, The Kinks, The Who – were filtered into the brusque economy of The Jam. Between 1977 and ’82 the Woking trio of singer-guitarist Weller, bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler created a string of killer albums and irresistible singles that earned them a fiercely loyal fan base and major chart success. Weller swiftly emerged as an uncommon songwriter, capable of articulating the blunt frustrations of working-class suburbia in a way that hadn’t been heard since Ray Davies.
The Jam could have gone on, but it was typical of Weller, eager to pursue other options, that he dissolved the band at their commercial peak. He was still only 24 when they signed off with The Gift in 1982.
His next project, one that consumed him for the rest of the 80s, was the Style Council. To preserve the integrity of Classic Rock it’s perhaps best that we skip that chapter of Weller’s creative journey. Suffice to say that it involved jazz-lite soul and ill-advised deck shoes.
He returned to the fray with an understated solo debut in 1992. But the following year’s Wild Wood, a gorgeous set of psychedelic folk-tinged songs that betrayed a love of Traffic and early Neil Young, revived his career. By 1995’s Stanley Road, Weller had become the elder statesman of Britpop. He continued to release albums at a steady rate, never failing to make the top five.
The early part of the new millennium brought with it something of an artistic dip, though Weller recovered in fine style. The run of albums from 2008’s 22 Dreams to his latest, this year’s age-referencing 66, represents the most consistently ambitious music of his life. “I’ve always been mindful of taking the writing somewhere else,” Weller has explained. “You can’t stick in your little comfort zone.”
…and one to avoid
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