The album that gave Paul Weller faith in rock music
No artist can be satisfied with playing the same style of music over and over. Even though it might be what pays the bills, there will always come a time when artists start to feel stagnated. While Paul Weller was undergoing a career renaissance in the 1990s, he credits one album for renewing his faith in rock music.
From the first time he picked up a guitar, Weller always wanted to make something more than a standard pop song. Born out of the punk movement, ‘The Modfather’ had created some of the most radio-friendly punk rock ever made, turning in pieces that had as many hooks as they did witty lyrics on tracks like ‘Down at the Tube Station at Midnight’ and ‘A Town Called Malice’.
While the band would have an underground throughout most of their career, things started to fracture once they reached the mid-1980s. After making one album after the next, the group started outgrowing each other as performers and creative entities, leading to Weller trading in his frontman duties for a solo career.
Although Weller’s signature style may have had a bit of a strange fit in the late 1980s, the dawn of the next decade saw his style back in vogue again. In the wake of grunge blowing down the doors for the new guard of rock music, the English music scene brought new bands that started to view Weller as an elder statesman for their brand. Out of all the Jam fans that struck it big, no one was friendlier to Weller than Noel Gallagher.
Having turned in one of the greatest debut albums of the decade with Oasis on Definitely Maybe, Noel became fast friends with Weller, each respecting the amount of time and effort they put into each other’s tunes. While Weller was starting to gain momentum off the success of his album Stanley Road, he eventually got the call to listen to the first demos of What’s the Story Morning Glory.
Liking the sounds of the song ‘Champagne Supernova’, Weller would eventually contribute a guitar solo and lend backing vocals to the piece, being responsible for the high harmonies towards the end of the track. Once he heard the album in full force, Weller couldn’t help but reminisce on the kind of music that he loved as a kid.
Speaking with Mojo, Weller credited the Gallagher brothers for helping him get back in touch with music again, saying, “It made me excited again. It made me realise that I didn’t have to feel silly believing in rock and roll and pop, that it does actually move people, it’s worthwhile. It reconfirmed the power of music, and the general excitement it caused added so much to my life.”
Weller would continue to have a fruitful relationship with Gallagher, with Gallagher eventually covering songs like ‘To Be Someone’ and sitting in with his idol when performing tracks like ‘That’s Entertainment’. While there’s usually a warning that comes with meeting one’s heroes, the relationship between Weller and Gallagher made for the best of both worlds for each artist.
