Weller's Life Work...
This album is a giant effort Mr. Weller's solo career. It hits on all his influences and takes them a step or two further. Rockers, soul, ballads, mood pieces....just great. Highlights for me - All I Wanna Do, Push it Along, Echoes Round the Sun, Sea Spray. Any fan will love it and it might bring him some new converts. It's a work that shows a great artist still sharp with his craft. Props to all the other musicians too as they shine brightly.

The Modfather still crackling at 50!!
"22 dreams" by British Mod Rocker Paul Weller is a sprawling opus that sees him fleeting stylistically from Blues to Soul to Electronica to Jazz to even Tango, ensuring there is a little something for everyone. Due to its length (21 tracks clocking in at about 70 minutes) it does take a while to get into, but its ended up becoming my favourite Weller album.

The title track "22 dreams" and "Echoes round the sun" are both Blues-tinged rockers, while "All I wanna do (is be with you)" and "Have you made up your mind" fall into the Soul category. The instrumental "Song for Alice" is a Jazzy tribute to the late Alice Coltrane.

"Invisible" is a fragile sounding sparse piano ballad, and "Why walk when you can run" is an absolutely brilliant acoustic ballad (yearning vocals set to delicate strumming, like those Rick Rubin produced Johnny Cash/Neil Diamond/Jakob Dylan songs), my absolute favourite song! In fact, along with "Black is the colour" and "You do something to me", it's one of my favourite Weller songs ever.

Other standouts include the haunting Tango of "One bright star", "Lullaby fur kinder" (a touching piano sonata), the eerie acoustic ballad "God" (a spoken conversation with God - "And I looked up/and I spoke to God/and God said look at you/don't look at me/you only call on me when you need me/and when you don't/you hardly think of me at all"), the swirling electronic instrumental "111", and the closing hypnotic instrumental "Night lights".

The Modfather shows he's still got it in spades. Eclectic and brilliant!!

GREAT ALBUM!!
ALMOST EVERYTHING PAUL WELLER DOES I ENJOY.THE ALBUM "22 DREAMS"
GOES IN A DIFFERENT PLACE SOMEWHAT-BUT THE MORE I LISTEN I'VE
BECOME REALLY CRAZY ABOUT IT! 4 STARS! PAUL, WE WILL SEE YOU
AND YOUR BAND IN SAN FRANCISCO SEPT. 4TH!

22 Dreams
Paul's back, with more of the great tune revival we heard in Illumination.
Much of his earlier solo work left us pining for Style Council and Jam, but melody is back in this deep collection of well written songs.
Of particular interest to me was the song about God, where the singer suggests that people just lead their own lives, ignoring God, until they're in desperate need of something, and then turn to God for help. So true so often.

IT'S WILD
Mostly mellow, had it for two days and still growing on me... thus far I would label it a mostly soul record with cool splashes of acid jazz... hard to pigeon hole this one... cool psych rock and folk mixed in there too... The short answer is a mega yes you need it. I guess my title sums it up best: IT'S WILD! ...could it be I had too much to dream last night?... Perfect record to light a candle and chill with. So far it gets better with every listen... a very good thing indeed!