Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Weller, Paul
Label: Virgin Records
Release: 2014
Running time: 63:17
Rating: 4/5
Paul Weller is a true music legend. He’s one of those musical oddballs you can only love or hate. There’s no middle ground. If you like his approach, you’ll like pretty much everything he does, because his voice and his vocal approach are the main conductors, the dominant force steering the expressive character of his work, which is full of adventurous experimentation and musical metamorphosis across his career. So if you’re a music critic and Paul Weller has gotten under your skin, you’re a fan too. The line between critic and devotee gets blurred pretty damn quickly.
A lot of years have passed since that distant April day in 1977 when Weller dropped the breakthrough single In the City with The Jam, a full 31 years since he introduced the world to his next band, The Style Council, while his solo career has been winding along for 24 years now. The compilation »More Modern Classics« arrives right on cue, rounding up the studio releases of the revered godfather of mod that came out between 2000 and 2012. To be totally precise, it goes all the way to 2014, since the compilation also includes two brand-new tracks.
The tracks are lined up chronologically, kicking off with highlights from the album »Helliocentric« (2000), represented by the punchy He’s the Keeper (dedicated to the late The Small Faces/Faces member Ronnie Lane) and, right behind it, the contrastingly mellow, easygoing and yearning Sweet Pea, My Sweet Pea. Helliocentric’s 2002 successor, »Illumination«, is represented by just one track, It’s Written in the Stars. Interestingly, the other two singles from that album, The Bottle and Leafy Mysteries, both missed the cut, especially the latter, which is the album’s standout moment artistically. The guitars roar harder on the »As It Is Now« hit From The Floorboards Up (that album’s third single, Here’s Good News, didn’t make the compilation), while the »Studio 150« hit Wishing On A Star shows the romantic side of Paul’s musical outlook, where Weller’s fine-tuned sense for infectious melodies and his heartfelt delivery of sweetly seductive verses make for an extremely tight pairing. It’s not hard to feel Weller’s greater affinity for his newer material on this compilation. The album »22 Dreams« is certainly among the most ambitious works of his career, marking a leap in Weller’s expressive character (a bold transition of his recognizable artistry into sonically experimental waters), which the last two albums, »Wake up the Nation« (2010) and »Sonik Kicks« (2012), merely confirmed, deepened and expanded. On these albums Weller basically established an artistic stance that neither seeks nor demands a hit single, but instead puts front and center an effective collision between trying out the untried and the basic stance of Weller’s recognizable artistry.
The compilation is also welcome because it doesn’t focus strictly on the best moments of the studio albums released between 2000 and 2012. It also includes four singles that aren’t on any album: Wild Blue Yonder, Starlite, the latest single Flame-Out!, and a brand-new one released exclusively on this compilation, called Brand New Toy. That last track once again departs from the rest of the material (especially the three singles from »Sonik Kicks«), proving that Paul Weller’s musical evolution as an artist is nowhere near finished. It’s also a hint that the next studio album will bring another seriously interesting moment in this incredibly prolific British artist’s already extremely rich career. His astonishingly convincing musical chameleonism is one of the biggest thrills of following his artistic moves.
21 Modern Classics, then, hands the listener a more mature era of Paul Weller’s musical evolution. It’ll be especially welcome for all those fans of his music who are missing his later studio albums in their record collection, and also for those who don’t know Weller yet, because it will vividly and effectively usher you into the adventure of Weller’s one-of-a-kind, unrepeatable musical vision.
Track List
1. He’s The Keeper
2. Sweet Pea, My Sweet Pea
3. It’s Written In the Stars
4. Wishing On A Star (Single Version)
5. From The Floorboards Up
6. Come On / Let’s Go
7. Wild Blue Yonder
8. Have You Made Up Your Mind
9. Echoes Round The Sun
10. All I Wanna Do (Is Be With You)
11. Push It Along
12. 22 Dreams
13. No Tears To Cry
14. Wake Up The Nation
15. Fast Car / Slow Traffic
16. Starlite
17. That Dangerous Age
18. When Your Garden’s Overgrown
19. The Attic
20. Flame-Out!
21. Brand New Toy
