Suitable to such a considered approach, special guests are wisely (as in, this is Weller’s gig, mate, so do your work and exit stage left pronto) kept to a minimum: James Morrison on Broken Stones, Boy George on You’re the Best Thing, and Celeste on Wild Wood. The same can be said for others such as Andromeda, My Ever Changing Moods, On Sunset, Bowie and Still Glides the Stream. In England, he is recognised as something of a national institution yet, because much of his songwriting is rooted in English culture, he has remained essentially a national rather than an international star. That song is here, needless to say, enfolded in a sweeping array of strings and elusive brass that brings out even more of its emotional simplicity. Paul Weller (born ) is an English singer / songwriter, leader of two successful bands: The Jam and The Style Council. But that album’s ballad, English Rose, perplexed as much as soothed. Yes, there were little punk/pop firecrackers that suitably tallied with the moods of the time.
PAUL WELLER 2021 MOD
It might be well to remember that even as far back as The Jam’s third album, All Mod Cons (1978), Weller very deliberately laid out his cards on the table.
PAUL WELLER 2021 FULL
A full orchestra with the likes of In the City, Going Underground, Start, Eton Rifles and/or a few other Jam/Style Council/solo stompers would surely have been a mismatch made in some kind of experimental, avant garde hell. Such a collaboration could work only with a particular “type” of song. The key here isn’t necessarily the lack of interaction in the room – excitable or not – but the focus and execution of the works in hand. Due to Covid-19 restrictions it was, of course, a sparsely attended, socially distanced show, filmed/recorded for online and television broadcast (both of which took place in June). More than six months ago, Weller, long-term mucker Steve Cradock and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Jules Buckley) gathered in London’s Barbican centre. One answer is to do it the way Paul Weller has here. The question remains, however: how does an artist do justice to selections from their back catalogue without the exercise turning into the proverbial dog’s dinner? The mega-names often get it dreadfully, embarrassingly wrong: they shoot for the stars by duetting with equally famous singers and delivering overproduced versions of their best- known songs. What on earth can they do to not only make sense of their sizeable back catalogues but to repackage them, creatively speaking, in a way that doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator? Credible heritage artists are in a quandary.
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