"Bless the Rolling Stones' hearts, but I don't necessarily want to go on doing the same old thing": The Paul Weller albums you should definitely listen to

The Jam - All Mod Cons (Polydor, 1978)

Weller has often been at his sharpest when faced with adversity. Seemingly on the slide after their poorly received second album The Modern World, The Jam responded with All Mod Cons, a bilious volley of pop-punk full of acute, character-driven observations of humdrum British life in the 70s. 

The spectre of Ray Davies is apparent in the tart social critique of Mr Clean and Billy Hunt, never mind the great cover of David Watts. Down In The Tube Station At Midnight is a tale of thuggery, but Weller could also write with a hitherto unseen delicacy; English Rose stands as one of the most arresting love songs of its era.

Paul Weller - Wild Wood (Go! Discs, 1993)

After the previous year’s low-key debut, the Mercury Prize-nominated Wild Wood heralded Weller’s arrival as a truly forceful solo artist. The overriding tone is pastoral, echoing the autumnal British folk of Nick Drake and the trippy grooves of mid-period Traffic. 

This reflective, almost holistic mood is perfectly expressed in the mellow warmth of the title track and the wistful epic Shadow Of The Sun, with rasping solo and guest vocals from his then-wife Dee C Lee. Weller hadn’t lost his edge, either. Has My Fire Really Gone Out? and Can You Heal Us (Holy Man) both bristle in a manner not heard since The Jam.

The Jam - Setting Sons (Polydor, 1979)

Initially devised as a concept LP about childhood friends who reunite after a war, only to find themselves no longer compatible, Setting Sons turned out to be less thematic. Elements of Weller’s original vision remain (Little Boy Soldiers, Burning Sky, Wasteland, the cover photo of a bronze cast from the Imperial War Museum), but the album instead serves as a sly treatise on class and workaday life. 

The Eton Rifles is viciously poignant, while Bruce Foxton offers up his finest moment with Smithers-Jones. Bursting with melody and invention, it’s a punky postscript to The Kinks’ Arthur.

The Jam - Sound Affects (Polydor, 1980)

Supposedly Weller’s favourite, Sound Affects is a potent distillation of everything he adored about British music. The Beatles are given the most explicit nod on Start!, a No.1 single that lifts the riff of Taxman. On consumerist attack Pretty Green, Weller channels Gang Of Four with a dash of modern psychedelia. 

Foxton and Buckler are sinuous, while Weller’s stroppy riffs are punctuated by clever hooks and, on Boy About Town and Dream Time, a little brass. The greatest track is That’s Entertainment, a strum-along over a litany of bugbears about suburbia.

Paul Weller - Stanley Road (Go! Discs, 1995)

Weller’s third album is an exemplar of 90s Britpop, from its ringing guitar chords and retro grooves to Peter Blake’s classic sleeve art. Not to mention Noel Gallagher on the cover of Dr John’s I Walk On Gilded Splinters.

Named after the Woking address where Weller grew up, Stanley Road is a mix of the reflective and acerbic. The Changingman (one of two UK Top 10 hits, with You Do Something To Me), borrows a lick from ELO’s 10538 Overture, before fanning out into a bluff rocker. The nostalgia is heightened by Steve Winwood’s piano turn on Woodcutter’s Son and Pink On White Walls.

Paul Weller - 22 Dreams (Island, 2008)

An emphatic response to all those tired Modfather clichés, 22 Dreams is as dazzling as it is wildly eclectic. Folk, soul and psychedelia are accompanied by electronica, jazz rock and a fresh sense of experimentation that even finds room for cowbells, hornpipes and spoken-word poetry. 

The beauty of it all is that it hangs together so persuasively. Then there are guests Robert Wyatt (trumpet and piano on Alice Coltrane homage Song For Alice), Blur’s Graham Coxon (Black River), ex-Jam bandmate Steve Brookes (One Bright Star) and, on the trippy Echoes Around The Sun, old pal Noel Gallagher.

Paul Weller - On Sunset (Polydor, 2020)

After 2018’s relatively low-key True Meanings, his final album for Parlophone, Weller’s 15th studio effort saw him return to Polydor, scene of glory days with The Jam and his subsequent tenure in The Style Council. The latter, in particular, seemed to feed into On Sunset’s partial exploration of funk and soul, typified by Baptiste. 

Yet for all its modernist takes on vintage obsessions, the album succeeds best when Weller is at his most experimental. The seven-and-a-half minute Mirror Ball is little short of astonishing in its scope, shifting from pop synthscapes to fractured grooves, from dirty guitar breaks to found sounds. He takes a similar approach on songs like the sumptuous More, while Old Father Tyme edges into the mystic.

Paul Weller - Wake Up The Nation (Island, 2010)

The clipped urgency of Weller’s tenth album suggested a return to the days of The Jam, further accentuated by two cameos from Bruce Foxton, their first collaboration since 1982’s breakup. 

For all its jagged brevity, though, Wake Up The Nation is highly adventurous, a fact best served by the avant stylings of Trees and the caustic soundscape 7&3 Is The Strikers Name, the latter featuring My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields. Less confrontational, but just as impressive, are a couple of luminous soul stirrers – No Tears To Cry and Aim High – both of which evoke the timeless spirit of Bobby Womack or Howard Tate.

Paul Weller - Sonik Kicks (Island, 2012)

Weller’s burgeoning interest in free-form music is a key feature on Sonik Kicks, from the Neu!-inspired Kling I Klang to the electronic collage of Green. Which is not to say he’d suddenly gone all avant-garde. 

The likes of Dragonfly and Drifters sound like fizzy refractions of Berlin-era Bowie, while That Dangerous Age, a funky study of a man struggling with the passing of youth, refutes any notions of Weller as a man without humour. And if it’s classic craftsmanship you’re after, best head to the more tranquil, string-laden By The Waters. It revels in the idea of sound as stimulant, dizzy with discovery and with a kaleidoscopic sense of purpose.

Paul Weller - Fat Pop (Volume 1) (Polydor/Solid Bond, 2021)

“Pop, in old money…you know what I mean?” Weller’s directive for On Sunset’s successor was pretty straightforward: concise songs that might pass as a disparate cache of standalone singles. Eager to make up time lost to the pandemic, Fat Pop arrived ten months after his previous album, borrowing leftover ideas from those sessions and shaping them into something joyous and immediate. 

The funk-heavy title track is an effervescent celebration of music as restorative balm; Cosmic Fringes occupies a space somewhere between krautrock and techno; Andy Fairweather Low joins in on the ebullient Testify; Hannah Peel’s artful string arrangements give flight to the likes of Glad Times and Still Glides The Stream, the latter co-written with Weller’s regular sparring partner, Steve Cradock.

Paul Weller - Heavy Soul (Island, 1997)

Leaving the Style Council to one side, Weller has made other questionable turns throughout his career. Studio 150, 2004’s all-covers set, is patchy at best. Heliocentric and Illumination, from the early noughties albums, also have their detractors.

But arguably his lowest moment is Heavy Soul, the follow-up to the much-loved Stanley Road. In its defence, there’s nothing truly awful on it. But neither is there anything genuinely inspiring, just a tired-sounding retread of Weller tropes. Perhaps most damning of all, Heavy Soul saddled him with a reputation as the leading exponent of lumpy dad-rock.