He made his name as an angry young man, and it seems age has not mellowed Paul Weller.
The former Jam frontman – who as an 18-year-old wrote the lyrics “And I know what you’re thinking / You still think I’m crap / But you’d better listen, man / Cos the kids know where it’s at” – has now taken aim at the current crop of emerging artists.
His issue would not appear to be the quality of the music they’re making, so much as the quantity.
Weller, who will celebrate his 66th birthday this May, has revealed that he “don’t understand” the apparent reluctance of younger musicians to “keep pushing out” new material, in an interview with Dan Jennings of the Paul Weller Fan Podcast.
Paul Weller has released 21 albums since breaking up The Jam.
"Isn't that part of the job description, that you go on tour and you make records?” he told the Paul Weller Fan Podcast. “That's probably an old-school way of looking at it, but that's all it's about really.
"I think it still applies. I think there's something to be said for consistency and keep pushing it and pushing it and pushing it out. As opposed to a lot of the younger artists who make an album then don't make another for five or seven years.
"I don't understand that. I often think, 'What do you do in those in-between years? You can't be on tour for five or seven years touring the same record, surely?’"
Weller formed what was to become The Jam as a 14-year-old in the early 1970s, and after their debut single “In the City” broke into the Top 40 in 1977, the band released six studio albums in five years. Since breaking up The Jam in 1982, he has gone on to release no fewer than 21 further studio albums, 16 of them as a solo artist.
After forming The Jam as a teenager, that band went on to release six albums in five years.
It is this kind of productivity and work ethic – and the attendant leaving of a legacy – that he feels is lacking among today’s musicians… and he also hinted that allied to this there may be a tendency to focus too much on style, rather than content.
"If people like me because of my music then great, fantastic, but that's it for me. Beyond that, I couldn't care less about any of that at all,” he continued in the interview.
"Somebody like Amy Winehouse, who was a brilliant artist, she's only left two records in the world. I think that's why it's important to put out as much as you can. Not just for the sake of it, not [rubbish], obviously."
Amy Winehouse's musical legacy consists of just two LPs.
Weller’s most recent LP, Fat Pop (Volume 1) reached No. 1 in the UK albums charts in May 2021, with Allmusic describing it as “a dense… collection of bold hooks, easy melodies, and multicolored sonics, a record that happily blurs distinctions between genre as it hops from mood to mood,” and adding: “Paul Weller can't sit still. Even during busy times, he manages to release an album every other year.”
After an acclaimed slot supporting Blur at their Wembley gig in the summer, his UK tour kicks off this April. Tickets can be bought here.
Paul Weller - an incredible back catalogue and lovely taste in winter knitwear.
