Wild Wood

estaba bien sin mas, no lo terminé sorry

Sunflower 3.5 Can You Heal Us (Holy Man) 3.5 Wild Wood 3.3 Instrumental (Pt 1) 3.4 All the Pictures on the Wall 3.2 Has My Fire Really Gone Out? 3.3 Country 3.1 Instrumental Two n/a 5th Season 3.4 The Weaver 3.3 Instrumental One (Pt 2) n/a Foot of the Mountain 3.4 Shadow of the Sun 3.6 Holy Man (reprise) 3.5 Moon on Your Pajamas 3.3 Hung Up 3.3 Score: 3.364285714

Nice sound. No hits

Jeden z mojich obľúbených albumov. Nekriticky 5

무난

It's a good one

Very confused by this one. It is a grungy folk album that isn’t fully grunge. The dirty guitar sound is kind of what does it but it has more roots in blues and folk. If you told me this was an album from the 70s as opposed to 1993, I’d say that sounds right. Personally, I really liked it and was surprised that I had never encountered him before. I will probably check out more of his material. In terms of the project, I’m not sure why it was in here. It doesn’t stand out from the time and hasn’t really had a lasting impact on musical styles that followed. It is a good listen but seeing as I haven’t heard it in the 33 years since it was released, I guess I could have been ok having never listened to it. For me personally, I may give it four stars but in terms of the context of the project I don’t think it warrants that.

Pretty good - Didn't really get bored!

Always struggle with this album. Twice I've tried. It does feel like a legit precursor to Brit-pop but hmmm. I want to like it, but I've always hated Oasis so...

Could be worse

Always been a big fan of the title track. Expected to know more from this album, but can’t say anything was recognisable. Nice enough, but nothing close to the aforementioned title track

The Jam's Sound Affects is one of my favourite discoveries so far. His solo career, based off this album, isn't nearly as good. It's pretty, but also pretty boring

Maybe I just don't get it. This is one of the most disjointed and uninspired records I've heard. There's some really nice guitar work here and there but that's about it.

This is very mid. It's like tinned music basically. I saved some songs but I think I'll end up deleting them.

7/10 Much better than I was expecting. Some good tunes and excellent guitar if the newly forming indie variety. You can see the sprouting if Britpop here.

What a great album. Maybe a little rote at the end, but very enjoyable.

Never heard of this guy. Perhaps it was the dearth of decent albums from the generator this week, but ended up enjoying this more than expected.

Not listened to much of his stuff. Easy to listen to but fat to low key for me.

Not listened to it before. A couple of good tracks, very mellow, verging on boring

2.5. Yeah, this is a bit harsh, as it’s not a bad record. But I’m ultimately grading against my expectations. I love the Jam, they are an essential piece of 70s English punk history, with multiple classic albums. I figured Weller solo would be a continuation of that quality and vibe, but here he commits the ultimate rock sin; of all things…. It’s boring. It’s came and went without me noticing and has no place on this list.

Pretty solid offering from Paul Weller here. Not as good as The Jam, but better than Style Council. Definitely liking the folkier, darker tracks like Wild Wood and Foot of the Mountain over the more bluesy and rootsier tracks. Sometimes verges a little too much on Huey Lewis and the News type stuff, especially in the vocals. Sometimes a little psychedelic in a way I don't like either. So yeah. Solid album here. Not blowing me away though.

Some bright spots but inconsistent

Wild Wood is a pleasant amble with Paul Weller. He knows how to write a solid rock ballad, but is missing some of the energy from The Jam. It’s at no point either great or terrible.

Weller gets a high 2 from me, tries on a few styles and doesn't particularly convince me in any of them

I stopped listening to Turbonegro for this album and less than a minute in I’m feeling like it’s not worth it. It could also be my knock off Beats headphones that I got from Chi-Na but the sound quality is a wee bit muffled. The drums sound closeted. Same with the vocals. Lyrically and harmonically I’m still feeling this as weak. Musically it’s not so bad but I really can’t wait for this album to be over. . . . . . Silence from me. You don’t want that. Glad it’s over.

This was ok, easy listening. Not much to say about it. Not bad, nothing really grabbed me. Don't see how it preempts brit-pop. 2*

I enjoyed it but it felt like the album went on a bit so maybe not very interesting? Rating: 6/10

At first I was into the the groove, but then it just stayed there. Not a bad listen just sounds pretty uninspired. All songs are mid and fall short with nothing standing out. 2/5

Unexpected sound. Was anticipating a soft indie album based on the cover.

Extremely listenable

Hoy vamos con un músico que no conozco, de una banda que ya salió en este reto y ubicaba solo de nombre. Suena agradable, además de que Paul Weller tiene pinta de tipazo. Me gustó como disco para poner de fondo en una juntada, para una mañana tranquila y para volverla aun más linda. Los temas más folk me recuerdan, salvando las distancias, al capo de Nick Drake: Country es un gran ejemplo. Gran disco que va a los favoritos. Muchas gracias y hasta mañana.

So so good no note

I quote enjoy The Jam so I was interested to see what this was like when it generated. Unfortunately it's dull as dishwater. 2.5* rounded down to 2*

Pleasant but not special. No standouts or particularly impressive songs. I don’t see a need to castigate (1) but also no need to listen again. 2/5

Absolutely fine

Distinctively average

I think I've had too much tea

Just a pretty average album in my opinion. 3 stars or C.

I was debating between giving this 2 stars or 3. The songs don’t seem that bad, but they all just end up fading into the background and become instantly forgettable. I wouldn’t be mad if I heard this in a grocery store, but at the same time I can really sit for 50+ minutes and intentionally listen to it

Pas mauvais mais stil très average

There is a condition that some folks have called musical anhedonia. It essentially means that one can't derive an emotional connection with music. Hearing is normal, and one can derive pleasure from other sources, but they simply can't enjoy music. It apparently affects 3-5% of the population. It's kinda tragic, if you ask me. But listening to this album, I think I'm getting a glimpse of what that's like. I hit play on this album and got to the fifth song before I realized I wasn't listening to it at all. So, wanting to give this album a fair shake, I restarted the album. I got nothing from this. It's not like it's a bad album. The songwriting sounds decent enough. There's definitely some decent musicianship going on, but I got nothing. I think this is the flattest, most boring, decent album I've ever heard.

alright, not bad

Actually a very decent album, enjoyed more than I thought I would

Not great but not bad either. more mellow than i expected 3/5

Sounds a LOT like Eric Clapton, but I liked it. Made an hour of work go by a bit quicker.

Fine

awful

Bored by all but the penultimate song

I like a lot of Weller’s music from The Jam and Style Council, but the British embrace of his third act was overcompensating for not appreciating that earlier work. This is just kinda dull.

Uhhh, I have no idea why anyone would have to listen to this. Theres nothing on here not done better by others before him. That being said, its absolutely..fine. and it sounds like fairly modern dad rock and not early 90s dad rock. But really, it's crazy to have this on this list

It just sounds like most solo artist's solo albums. It's slightly different than their sound but it's just a dressed up blues album. This sounds like Micheal McDonald era Doobie Brothers, Gov't Mule & dare I say it- Phil Lesh & Friends. Why this album is on this list is beyond me? Better artists could take this spot. You are already here with The Jam, twice. 2

Booooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggggg. Unseasoned chicken ahh album. Essential album for falling asleep.

just pure dad music

I love u PW

This is great, first time I've heard it in full. Takes some surprising musical directions.

loved this!

Why? 5/10 There are way worse records in the 1001 collection, and this record probably doesn’t actually deserve 2 stars. But this so boring and uninspired and I have literally no idea what it adds to the musical lexicon that a million other artists I’ve never heard of don’t already add. Why is this here? I’m probably rating this 2 stars mostly just because I’m offended by this records inclusion more than because I think it’s a terrible record; I don’t, but it’s also not good, and I don’t see what it offers that I just desperately need to hear before I die.

I love Weller and The Jam, I think what they did for music in the UK and the Mod-Revival was excellent, but this is a chore to get through isn’t it? Appreciate that by the 90s, post Jam, post Style Council, Weller was in a position to rightly do what he wanted, but idk, this just doesn’t tear up any trees. It’s a middle of the road, 90s soft rock record. My life hasn’t changed any for listening to this.

Never heard of this guy before. This album was alright. Some of the instrumentals/composition are really great and sound very timely for the 90s, even though he had apparently been performing since the 70s. Other songs feel like reheated classic rock nachos; not bad, just not particularly interesting. Mostly, though, I did not care for the vocals. Probably won't explore any more of his discography.

This record was a surprise to me. I hit a stank face in most of these tracks. Favourite Track(s): Sunflower, Can You Heal Us (Holy Man), Wild Wood, Moon On Your Pyjamas, Hung Up Least Favourite Track(s): Country, Shadow Of The Sun

Britain’s answer to Springsteen. I don’t like Springsteen. This was a rehash of old Sonic territory. If I want to hear about working class Brits, I’m turning to Pulp.

a Lil better than the usual britishness didn't add any songs to playlist

Not me

too sad for me

Garbage

From the first song I thought I would really like this but it falls of a bit, still very nice folk rock though, the opener being rather great

It wasn't terrible but it was a bit boring.

4.25. Liked it a lot. Very pretty. Some times a little mom rock

This was fine, but it dragged sooooooooo much. Points lost for doing nothing that hadn't been done a million times before. 2.0/5.0: Disappointing

this isnt a high bar to clear but i think this is my favorite paul weller album so far. i have similar thoughts on this one as i did the other two, the instrumentals are pretty good but it goes downhill when paul opens his mouth to sing.

I’ve tried to like Paul Weller. In a way, I feel like I should love his music, based on similar artists. You do something to me is one of my favourite songs. Yet, whenever I listen to a whole album, I am left feeling underwhelmed. This time as well. It is just bland. No tracks really stand out. It’s still an okay album, but not one I will ever need to re-listen.

Pretty chill album with some good vibes. I don't think this stood out as anything ground breaking or must hear so I can't give it a 5. But it was enjoyable.

Objectively he’s written some great songs but I didn’t feel anything. Wish someone else sung them maybe?

Rock.

This is just a taste of what was to come as Weller only got better as a solo artist. Pity those records aren’t in the list also. Fab album.

It’s Welller. It’s his debut solo. It’s a banger.

(4/7) nothing really stood out to me

Pretty repetitive, unoriginal and annoying. Too bad, I like the Jam, but Weller alone makes a pretty boring and pretentious art rock.

This was pretty good. Surprised

Really liked the album. I was familiar with the title song, which I always liked, but never listened to the whole album. I read some reviews here that are quite negative as the album is much less exciting than the older work with The Jam. Well, it is indeed different. But this album sounds really mature and it was a fantastic listen. Great compositions and beautiful guitar work with some horns and even some funk vibes along high quality pop and soulful rock.

Of the 90's Pauls, I think I prefer Westerberg. 3 stars.

RATING: 9/10 HIGHLIGHT: Hung Up LOWLIGHT: All the Pictures On the Wall

“This bland album that was kind of popular in the UK in fall ‘93 and made zero impact after that is totally essential listening! Eff everything that made a huge impact in the early-mid aughts.” - Robert Dimery, probably. In fairness, about half of this rocks, while the other half is 90’s elevator music nonsense. Starts and ends badly, which is a major ding.

it sounds like it was made in the '70s, which isn't a bad thing but it just didn't capture me.

Such a pleasant album to listen to. My favourite track was "Can You Heal Us (Holy Man)", but there were a number of tracks that I found enjoyable on this album. I would give this album a 3.5

Weller's voice became really soulful over time, great guitars (especially the wah all over the place), and it all sounds great. Songs surprisingly mid.

Maybe better with more listens.

Enjoyable without any edges. I'll try again in 20 years.

Nice easy-listening album, 3 stars.

Un disco con destaques, algunos buenos riffs. Se siente cómo una escucha, más que buena, solida, que va, se lleva. Mezcla el rock con el singer songwritting y el pop. Pero tiene un estilo personal. Creo que algo de lo más interesante son las canciones o los incisos que son solo instrumentales. Diría que es una escucha sólida. 3,25/5

I am starting to think this is 1001 albums to drive me crazy. What a boring album.

Ok

Wild Wood is an album of mutability played with absolute conviction. That contradiction runs through almost everything on it. The band sound immensely assured: muscular soul and R&B, Traffic, Wilko Johnson, woody folk-rock, late-60s British heaviness, Steve White’s wonderful driven drumming. Even the acoustic guitars are attacked with authority. Yet Weller himself spends much of the record sounding as though the certainties underneath his life have become unreliable. Relationships are ending. His professional standing has recently taken a battering. Statements acquire qualifications almost as soon as he has made them. His lyrics arrive in blocks, snapshots and parentheses, as though he is continually interrupting himself to reconsider what he has just said. Much of Wild Wood can be reduced, without doing it too much violence, to one recurring question: what the fuck is going on? “Sunflower” establishes the tension immediately. It begins with a huge, confident guitar figure, but underneath all that hairy-wristed Traffic-influenced muscle is a yearning song whose impressionistic lyric never quite settles. “Can You Heal Us (Holy Man)” goes further. Weller sounds as though he is conducting an argument with himself, making statements and contradicting them, while somehow turning the whole philosophical muddle into an irresistible pop song. Even its apparent chorus refuses to behave properly: the melodic shape returns, but the words keep changing. You can hum along before you can reliably sing along. “All the Pictures on the Wall” may be the emotional centre. Weller’s phrasing has something of Joni Mitchell about it, while Steve White does something remarkable underneath: he seems less interested in sitting in the pocket with the bass than in sitting in the pocket with the singer. The drums follow the cadence of the lyric. The song’s regret is carried in casual, almost conversational language, and it reminded me strongly of Thomas Hardy: enormous emotional devastation delivered without theatrical announcement. That quality in Weller can feel almost child-like. Adults disappoint him because some part of him still seems to expect them to behave better than they do. When the subject is a child, as on the lovely “Moon on Your Pyjamas”, that defensive machinery disappears and he can be remarkably sweet. “Has My Fire Really Gone Out?” is another key song. Given the preceding few years — the end of the Style Council, Polydor rejecting Modernism, the process of rebuilding a solo career — it is difficult not to hear some professional anxiety in it. It makes a fascinating companion to Dexys’ “Tell Me When My Light Turns Green”: creative identity experienced as something whose internal signal might disappear. Weller’s harmony throughout this album often has the same provisional quality. Chords lean somewhere, defer resolution, seem to be in the process of becoming something else. By “5th Season” the connection with the later “The Changingman” becomes almost impossible to ignore. Stanley Road will turn mutability into swagger. Change becomes identity; instability becomes something to ride. On Wild Wood, Weller is still being buffeted by it. Then “The Weaver” shifts the emotional posture. Suddenly he has agency. “I’m here to break the spell you’re under and get you started with another plan” is not a man asking what is happening to him. It is someone placing himself confidently inside another person’s emotional narrative. By “Shadow of the Sun”, even with another relationship apparently slipping away, there is still the insistence that dreams can be chased. The coda is enormous. That, finally, is what I think Wild Wood is about: doubt without paralysis, regret without retreat, uncertainty without surrendering the future. Weller accepts the unexpected. He does not need everything to stop changing before he can move again. Which brings me to the slightly silly problem of the book itself. 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die includes Wild Wood as Weller’s solo representative rather than Stanley Road. I began this listen thinking that was an annoyingly chin-stroking choice: take the obvious canonical album, step backwards one record and congratulate yourself on superior discernment. After listening closely, I can make a very strong case for Wild Wood. It catches the unstable process before Stanley Road turns that instability into confidence. But why choose one? Older artists are often allowed intact runs. Johnny Cash gets both prison albums. Nick Drake gets his entire three-album lifetime catalogue. Yet Weller produces two astonishing records in succession and apparently deserves one slot between them. There may be an element of anti-recency bias here, or simply a tendency to compress later artists into one representative statement while older canons are allowed redundancy and depth. If Nick Drake can have his whole career and Johnny Cash can have two prison albums, Paul Weller can surely have both Wild Wood and Stanley Road. Of course, the moment you say that, the real 1001 Albums question begins: Fine. Who dies?

This was really good.covers a wide gambit of genres.

unoffensive but not enjoyable for me. shadow of the sun was nice actually

A mix of tracks with great guitar riffs and drums, with super average tracks interspersed. Not quite sure what this album wants to be

This is another album that falls into the category of 'decent enough, but not essential'. The 4 solid tracks became Top 20 singles - not top 10 singles mind - and songs like Country and Fifth Season are decent album tracks, but there's nothing else particularly memorable one way or another. I've heard better albums involving Paul Weller that came both before and since. Of the singles, Wild Wood is a lovely bit of folk rock, while Sunflower and The Weaver are jaunty and catchy enough. It's OK, but unremarkable, and removed from the angry young man of 15 years or so previous. 3 stars.

Den va najs

This was a interesting album, even if it did lose me at times. I think it's worth a second listen.

It was good but a bit boring