Sunday, November 16, 2008

735. Paul Weller - Wild Wood (1993)

















Track Listing

1. Sunflower
2. Can You Heal Us (Holy Man)
3. Wild Wood
4. Instrumental One (Part 1)
5. All The Pictures On The Wall
6. Has My Fire Really Gone Out?
7. Country
8. Instrumental Two
9. 5th Season
10. The Weaver
11. Instrumental One (Part 2)
12. Foot Of The Mountain
13. Shadow Of The Sun
14. Holy Man
15. Moon On Your Pyjamas
16. Hung Up

Review

Paul Weller does some great retro-stuff here, mixing the psychedelic rockyness of Traffic with the folksiness of Nick Drake. Although that description might sound derivative, it is anything but. Weller creates a distinctively British form of retro-folk-rock which would be extremely influential through the rest of the decade and beyond.

The retro qualities of the music are precisely what make this album age well, it sounds like it could come from pretty much any time from the mid 60s onwards. Then there are some pretty amazing folk songs like Wild Wood or Country which show him at his best as a lyricist.

Weller is great at re-inventing himself from the Jam to Style Council and now in his solo career he does what is possibly his most successful reinvention since the Jam, an album of great musical variety which is successful at every style he attempts. Pretty great.

Track Highlights

1. Wild Wood
2. Country
3. Shadow Of The Sun
4. Sunflower

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It made it to number 2 in the UK charts, and contained two UK hits: "Wild Wood", which reached #14 in the UK charts and "Sunflower", which reached #16.

In 2000 Q magazine placed it at number 77 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.

A two disc deluxe edition was released on 22nd October 2007.

Wild Wood:


1 comment:

Marilyn Roxie said...

Checking in to your blog again- this album of Weller's is a particular favourite of mine. I only just now got Dimery's 1,001 book and just delving into those reviews along with these; it's always interesting to hear what you have to say, as well as the other bloggers that are chipping away at the 1,001! :D