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What happened to Paul Weller?

I am a big The Jam fan from when I first heard their music. One of the very first albums I bought was "Setting Sons" and the single "Going Underground". I lost track of him when the Jam disbanded. I have followed Paul WEller's career on and off. A first listen to "Fat Pop" did not move me much. Will listen again. I have the following albums on CD (+ ripped as FLAC):
Paul Weller
As Is Now
22 Dreams
Wake Up the Nation

I will make sure to listen to a few of the other albums mentioned here.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Then the really rather wonderful Stanley Road and Wild Wood. "Live Wood" is superb as a live record of this period and a really well recorded live album to boot.


I saw him live about 2008 ish at Newcastle and it was a bit underwhelming really... competent enough but I always had the feeling he was kinda thinking "another hour and I can be back in me hotel room with a beer.... another week of this and I'm outta here on holiday"
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He's had that attitude for many years......... I quite liked the energy of the Jam live album Dig the New Breed - especially side 1
 
Be honest about Paul Weller he has just gone on too long, ideas dry up etc, that said he says he loves making music more now that he is sober......:)
 
If he was American they’d have given him a LA star and a place in rock n roll hall of fame.
 
I just checked: I have 3 Jam albums, 5 Style Council, and 9 Paul Weller solo. Guess I'm a fan. Nothing newer than Saturn's Pattern, though.

Days of Speed probably gets more play than any other.
 
It turns out I was thinking of "Days of Speed" and calling it "live wood" in my last post... Yeah it is one of his best and a good recording.

I sometimes do a cover of "you do something to me" in "days of speed" style (council?) and it usually goes down great!:)
 
I might pickup a copy of Days of Speed on CD and give it a spin. I quite like listening to Paul Weller, TSC and The Jam.

I got to see Bruce Foxton's Jam a few years back and thought Bruce was a great player. Might have to delve in to his catalogue too.
 
The only good thing about Weller is he inspired The Creepers to rip him to pieces on this track (The Bard of Woking)

 
I think Paul weller is a clever talented craftsman, I think like prince did he records and releases almost everything he does, he needs to halve output and just choose the good uns_
 
Bought the Jam book/ box set of all the albums about 10 years ago, then failed to play any of it. I find it hard to listen to his young geezery voice and even harder to listen to his old geezery voice. Sad, because all the times I saw the Jam, I loved them :(
 
Definitely prefer early Weller, especially The Jam. Although, I do quite like some of The Style Council. Wild Wood and Stanley Road clearly the favourites of his solo stuff. I've not heard the new album & may not go out of my way to do so, but...

Whatever one thinks of his latest output though, at least he hasn’t turned out like Morrissey!
 
He admitted to voting Tory in '79 I believe and went a bit weird after his Style Council / Red Wedge days.
 
Really like him. His music continues to be involving and he has great energy. Saw him at Hyde Park and Leeds last few years. He was phenomenal at Leeds. Really up for it. I always feel he is very committed and still searching.
 
He edited June's Mojo (music mag) and picked the 15 tracks for the CD, a quite varied track listing, mostly newish artists and bands, some interesting music from acts I'd never heard or heard of before.
His own output I personally find varied, The Jam were great at the time though I haven't listened to them for years, The Style Council were bloody awful though I'm judging them on the singles that were released as I definitely would not have bought their Lps, Wildwood and Stanley Road were both excellent IMHO, probably his best works and a rejuvenation of a career just at the right time coinciding with the Brit pop explosion of the early 90's and earning PW some kudos and the title 'The Modfather' . I'm not sure I've heard any of his work since Stanley Road.
The most recent thing I heard was about a year or 18 months ago, a duet with Celeste singing a paired back version of 'You do something to me' with PW playing piano, beautiful song, beautifully executed and introduced me to Celeste.
 
The best record he's on is Robert Wyatt's Free Will and Testament. I never liked The Jam, they always seemed bogus, and the rest of his career is pretty forgettable rockist cliches. But this is a great song, and he plays some nice guitar on it.


One of Robert's best lyrics:

Given free will but within certain limitations,
I cannot will myself to limitless mutations,
I cannot know what I would be if I were not me,
I can only guess me.
So when I say that I know me, how can I know that?
What kind of spider understands arachnophobia?
I have my senses and my sense of having senses.
Do I guide them? Or they me?
The weight of dust exceeds the weight of settled objects.
What can it mean, such gravity without a centre?
Is there freedom to un-be?
Is there freedom from will-to-be?
Sheer momentum makes us act this way or that way.
We just invent or just assume a motivation.
I would disperse, be disconnected. Is this possible?
What are soldiers without a foe?
Be in the air, but not be air, be in the no air.
Be on the loose, neither compacted nor suspended.
Neither born nor left to die.
Had I been free, I could have chosen not to be me.
Demented forces push me madly round a treadmill.
Demented forces push me madly round a treadmill.
Let me off please, I am so tired.
Let me off please, I am so very tired.
 
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