Paul Weller Music Albums Tickets & Gigs – New Releases Tour Dates & Weller Concerts
Weller’s New Album Sonik Kicks Set For imminent release!
Paul Weller has been making music for over 30 years now. Not only did Paul help re-launch the Mod Movement in the UK with his band The Jam, but he went on to achieve many chart hits with the more experimental and diverse ‘Style Council’ but he stills impresses audiences today as a solo artist and his ability to produce quality and fresh sounding music with ease
The many faces of Paul Weller over the years have undoubtedly been reflected by his openness to embrace and be influenced by new (or old) music genres; from the spikey punk inspired french crew cut which he dons even today from time to time, through the Steve Marriot curtain mop.. to the slicked back cafe Bleu and acid jazz days and even the Neil Young influenced nonchalant hippie barnet of The Wild Wood era. Lets face it.. This is one boat race that has moved with the times!
Since the early days of the Jam, when certain sections of the press tried to label Mr Weller and his cohorts as ‘revivalist’, there has been a steady flow of black and white imagery, some of which was created at the behest of the band, but much of which was engineered to reinforce this naive assumption of plagiarism. Often peppered with the colours of the Union Jack and the Target theme in order to perpetuate the Mod revivalist theme, it somewhat ironically left us with a legacy of a much stronger sense of belonging than that created for it’s more indulgent and decadent Forefathers.
Weller Roots
Though not ground-breaking, the link between the music and the Jam and their imagery represented a more solid bond than had existed for their peers.. perhaps because they were on a slightly different voyage of discovery? Weller had stopped the Magic Bus to get off, so to speak, and by introducing 4 x 4 time Punk ideas to Soul Music classics had pretty much reflected the modern 60′s era in the way that Johnny Cash had revised country music.
What the Jam did, was not revivalist, it was an extension of what The Who had started. The Who, as opposed to the Rolling Stones, were semi-conscious ‘punks’ who were simply ‘gazumped’ by others from my generation.
To look at some of the early Weller imagery, it’s not difficult to spot his early uneasiness in paying too much homage to immediate influences, yet because of this nervous edge coupled with a passionate and sometimes blunt attitude to social politics which often claimed that actually The Kids Are ‘not’ Alright .. then the whole vibe surrounding the Jam amounted to a more acutely credible renaissance than the overbearing and oftentimes anarchic and directionless alternative of the punk ‘revolution’. Weller Rolls on effortlessly and keeps turning out quality music. Long may it continue!