I like his 'Heliocentric' album from 2000 quite a fair amount, come to think of it. There's one or two clunkers on the first half, I guess, but the second half is great. I particularly love the string arrangments and the production. Sadly, it was the last album he made with Brendan Lynch, who produced the first five solo albums.wanderlust wrote:Quite like the new album, he seems much a happier bloke these days as well. Weller's albums since Stanley road have ben a bit hit or miss containing a few good songs here and there but this one is pretty consistent. I think nostalgic people think he is suddenly going to do an album of 60s mod covers or re-record old Jam numbers but his solo carer has always been about doing new things and moving forward. Also attracting new fans who know nothing about his Jam days is handy for him as he hardly revisits any Jam songs in his live set.
I get tired of reading people saying he should reform The Jam, because what they don't understand is that it's far, far too late for that to happen. They'd probably be able to play the songs very well, but the barrier is Weller's voice, which has changed immensely since the early '80s. His voice suits the material he's doing now, but would sound out of place on The Jam stuff these days. Besides, I don't think he sees the point in doing something he doesn't need to do. He clearly doesn't need to reform The Jam. If there's any time he probably would have needed to do that, it would have been in the wilderness years in between The Style Council splitting up and his first solo album, and he completely refused to reform The Jam even then at his lowest point career-wise, so I can't see it ever happening now. Thank goodness, because I think it would be shit.