Weekly > Reviews
Paul Weller - 22 Dreams
I’ve long been a huge Paul Weller fan, my earliest memory of liking his work was when I was sat in the kitchen at home aged about five or six, listening to the top 40 and trying to stop and start my tape recorder before the DJ talked over the tracks that I liked and wanted on my tape. Three Jam songs were in the top 40 at the time and they all made it onto the much played tape.
As I got older I continued to follow his career and my love of The Jam has got stronger as the years have gone on, I even like his Style Council era as well and then of course you have his now lengthy solo career.
His solo career is probably the area of his work that has troubled me the most, he’s had some magical high points on just about every album, but save a couple of long players he’s also had a few naff moments as well, especially on stuff like Heliocentric, Illumination and the strange covers album Studio 150.
I think the problem he’s had is that Wild Wood was such a fantastic album and so successful, that it’s made it hard for him to reach those heights again, everything else since seems to have been chasing that albums shadow and never getting there, the changes in direction haven’t always been well judged and some of the tracks have been Dad-rock.
22 Dreams had all the warning signs of another average Weller solo album, 21 tracks in length (why not 22, or why not call it 21 Deams?) it looked like it was going to be overblown and a wearying listen. Which is why when you go into listening to something with such negative feelings it’s great when it turns round and surprises you. 22 Dreams is the best Weller album since Wild Wood in my opinion, a brave, well considered album that despite the number of tracks, never gets boring and retains your interest to the last note.
This is achieved by some great songwriting, but also by the attention to detail and neat flourishes that spring up and out of most of the tracks on here. Even the instrumental tracks that intesperse the album seem to be done with a purpose, where once they would have been filler.
- Paul Weller
- 22 Dreams (2008)
- Category: Album
- Label: Island Records
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 30 Jun 2008
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesThe highlights for me are plentiful, but i’ll narrow it down to a few here. All I Wanna Do (Is Be With You) is him at his emotional best, One Bright Star I really love with it’s Utopia era Goldfrapp sound in the background, then it takes on a kind of eerie flamenco feel, hard to describe but brilliant to listen to. Have You Made Up Your Mind is the recent single and it’s Weller pushing nearer to sixties soul which is something i’d like to see him do a full album of, thetrack really suits his voice and I think he could pull off a full album of this sort of thing.
So a very pleasing return to form all in all for The Modfather, I guess that’s the thing about heroes, everytime they look like they could be written off or dismissed as being on the wane, they come back stronger and stronger.
Have your say...
Comment Guidlines
You must be logged in to post a comment. Go Login or Register first.
We waffle on enough without letting you lot do it too. Comments are limited to 300 characters.
Try and keep on topic if you can and no insulting the contributors. All hate mail can be addressed to Kev.