Paul Weller - 22 Dreams

In publishing and graphics it’s common to use pre-generated Greek gibberish called lorem ispum as filler to demonstrate what a design will look like when copy is produced. Paul Weller’s 22 Dreams is the musical equivalent. As a narrative concept album I’d concede some value, but the boredom of sitting through sixteen generic tunes to get a kitschy joke after reading the album sleeve isn’t worth it.

Weller tunes up with Light Nights, a forgettable rootsy introduction to the album’s theme: mature love. Uninspired, we lurch into the rock-polka title-track and the concept is laid glaringly bare: “I had 22 dreams last night/And you were in 21/The last one I saved for myself/Just to save my soul.” Next comes All I Wanna Do (Is Be With You), a predictable restrained, mature love song. The chorus’s simplicity is redemptive and sonically pleasing, but it isn’t enough. Second single, Have You Made Up Your Mind continues on a similar course, but with stronger vocals, lyrics and hook.

Empty Ring follows with an unfortunate shade of Michael Crawford. If you always thought your Notting Hill soundtrack was one song short – this is it. Invisible suggests the loss of love in domesticity and at least reaffirms some lyrical competence: “Skim across the floor/I make a joke/ I toss a line/To no-one there/Who can see me alive”. Cold Moments follows (of course) and give us an accidentally retro, “Sha la la la.” Black River is shallow look at a long love in its middle phase: “And if I scratch the surface/And try to look to learn it/Oh what fantastic worlds I’ll find/Stay with me forever.”

And with that, we’ve thankfully covered the bad restrained, mature love songs. Let’s take a look at piss-take, One Bright Star. Generic lyrically and sonically, in this Latin rumba you’d be forgiven for assuming Weller had tossed his leather jacket, undone his button-fly and gyrated his way into a Rod Stewart impersonation. Track eleven, Why Walk When You Can Run, is a sadist’s carrot on a stick and rewards your tenacity. An elegantly under-produced self-admonition and tribute to his son, it allows Weller to demonstrate his vocal and lyrical reserve: “My son runs to the shore/To the world that lies before/He can’t hear my sound/He’s much to in tune with the ground/He sees only the tide/And the surf and the sea/...His only defence will always be/Why walk when you can run?”

Weller brushes up against his Modfather past in Push It Along. With a vocal boost during production, and the removal of unnecessary synth punctuation, this track could’ve been a tolerable reminiscence of his days in The Jam.

Paul seems his best when collaborating, and 22 Dreams is no exception. A collaboration between Weller, Noel Gallagher ( Oasis’ vocals/lead guitar/chief songwriter) and Gem Archer ( Oasis’ bassist), first single Echoes Round the Sun emerges from the chaos of A Dream Reprise. Its drum-line struts confidently in contemporary Gallagher style, while Weller’s vocals sidle up on you to ask your number and Gem’s riff paces agitatedly at the door. On God, Paul backs Aziz Ibrahim’s ( The Stone Roses, Simply Red ) existentialist prayer with light rhythm guitar. Again this collaboration, probably due to the restrained production, outshines most of the solo work.

Collaboration aside, Paul composes instrumentals with quiet competence. Song for Alice beats an ominous storm while piano scales line the dark clouds with silver. An ambient hymn oversees as the track abruptly becomes the domain of woodwind and brass before sliding, fittingly, into jazz. The ambience returns, coupling with a strutting piano and heralds the return of silver linings. Cymbals close.

22 Dreams’ other instrumentals show similar skill and suggest lyricism distracts Weller from his true talent. 111 in particular diverges from the Weller sound: accenting oboes are punctuated by whispy, bobbing synths to convey an elegant electro-despair. The album’s lyrical adieu, Sea Spray’s buoyant beat leads into gospel-rock and is Weller at his most genuine. On tracks like One Bright Star you can hear what Weller was after and failed to achieve; Sea Spray is so unforced you assume it was recorded inside his head.

In the same way that many musicians become institutions and end up producing albums that parody themselves, much of 22 Dreams sounds like a musical’s score: as though Weller were scoring his own biopic. Weller’s 22 dreams could’ve been twelve good tracks. That’s (not) Entertainment.