Paul Weller
True Meanings
Release Date: Sep 14, 2018
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Parlophone / Warner Bros.
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Album Review: True Meanings by Paul Weller
Great, Based on 8 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
There's always a temptation to identify round-figure birthdays as turning points, and when Weller hit 50 in 2008 it coincided with a creative rebirth on the album 22 Dreams. This year, now that he gets the buses and trains of London for free, he's travelling light, brandishing an acoustic guitar. True Meanings is, on the surface, a traditionally introspective singer-songwriter record, but such a reductive description runs the risk of underselling a package that contains some of the most accessible, thought-provoking and downright enjoyable music of his lengthy career.
Based on rating 4
Has Paul Weller ever been so productive? The ex-Jam front man, recently turned 60, has now made three markedly different albums in as many years, flitting from one branch to another like a musical chameleon. His restlessness is born of musical exploration, not the need to keep appealing to the music-buying public - and with his status as a national treasure practically assured, Weller can experiment and explore as album number 26 opens up ahead of him. True Meanings, however, lives up to its name as his most natural and instinctive work in recent years.
Based on rating 8/10
Consider True Meanings Paul Weller's comedown from a combustive, creative decade begun with 22 Dreams. That 2008 double album was co-produced with Simon Dine, who proved to be such a vital collaborator for Weller that the singer/songwriter found it difficult to shake off the producer's influence after the two parted ways acrimoniously in 2012. Weller's initial reaction to the split was to follow the straight and narrow on 2017's appealing A Kind Revolution but True Meanings, delivered just a year later, finds him mellowing and entering a reflective groove.
Based on rating 6.6/10
Maybe it's inevitable that British singers with a penchant for sharp suits will eventually make a crooner album. Elvis Costello did it twice with Burt Bacharach, and Rod Stewart has mined five volumes in his Great American Songbook series. Now it's Paul Weller's turn with True Meanings, a surprisingly tender collection of songs from a guy who is sometimes thought of as brusque.
Based on rating 3/5
After a burst of forward-thinking creativity, this dewy-eyed collection finds the Modfather back in pastoral mode Paul Weller's career has always ebbed and flowed between the incisive and the pastoral, one minute joy-riding through a town called Malice, the next punting soulfully down the Cam. So, after a recent burst of cutting-edge inventiveness on the likes of 'Sonik Kicks' and 'Saturn's Pattern', it's no surprise to find him kicking off his moccasins, dialling in a string section and hitting 60 in full-on folk mode. 'True Meanings' is his 'Nebraska', his 'Sea Change', his 'Flaws' by Bombay Bicycle Club.
Opinion: Excellent
I f Paul Weller's 50s were defined by a welcome musical restlessness - 2008's 22 Dreams began a run of shapeshifting records that overflowed with vitality and fresh ideas - the now 60-year-old sometime Modfather's 26th album is a surprise in a different way. A set of gentle pastoral songs, it finds him finally immersing himself in the singer-songwriterly fare that he's intermittently dipped into since 1978's English Rose. With backing from his regular band, plus guest spots from Martin Carthy and Rod Argent among others, Weller sounds at ease with this more introspective material, the lush orchestration acting as a perfect foil to his voice.
Opinion: Excellent
W eller's 40-odd-year career and ever-changing moods have taken him from the Jam to the Style Council to solo, via punky R&B, funk, soul and house to the genre-shifting experimentalism of the last decade. His gentler acoustic side surfaced as long ago as 1978's English Rose, but he's never done an album in that mould, as he does here. The voice, guitar and subtly orchestrated arrangements recall Nick Drake's work with Robert Kirby, or Weller's own Above the Clouds.
Opinion: Excellent
Paul Weller has never liked being comfortable. He split The Jam at their arena-filling height, forced The Style Council to make a record label infuriating deep house record, and - by his own admission - split from a happy marriage with Dee C. Lee purely because "I might lose my edge". Perhaps the most recent iteration of this fearless/foolhardy - delete as applicable - aptitude was his decision in 2006 to completely overhaul his solo band.
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