Paul Weller - Studio 150

The cover version album tends to cover a multitude of sins: writers block; contractual obligation; homage to heroes; marking of time; appealing to a new market. And usually, its only the fans who are willing to indulge the singer who records them. So its perhaps surprising that "Studio 150" is my first Paul Weller album. Sure, I've the best ofs - both of the Jam and the Style Council - but Paul's particular blend of earnest passion and gritty realism has never been a particular favourite. That said, at his best - the acoustic ascerbicness of "That's Entertainment" or the punch-drunk soul of "Walls Come Tumbling Down" - his passionate everyman figure tugs on my heart as much as anyones. "Studio 150" is a minor key triumph then - for Weller gets a chance to cover songs and singers that must have influenced some of his least expected moments. For a punk rocker he's always been primarily a white soul singer in the Steve Marriott style; and so even if his voice is occasionally pushed to be much more than a half-decent pub-singer, there's a conviction to his tone, and an authenticity to the arrangements that lifts the album well above karaoke. A well chosen cover version can lift even the dimmest live show. An exemplary band excels on the more soulful material - Aaron Neville's "Hercules" and Gil Scott Heron's "The Bottle" - even if he can't quite match the originals. More intriguing, the two disco numbers, Rose Royce's "Wishing on a Star" and Sister Sledge's "Thinking of You", are real standouts - proving that his Style Council peak, "Long Hot Summer", wasn't that anomalous a record. Of course, snobbishness aside, these are all great songs, but ones that aren't as necessarily wedded to a particular artist. The achilles heel of most covers albums are the attempts to cover the bases - usually the Dylan-Beatles-Stones access. Here we get only one attempt at the triumvirate, "All Along the Watchtower", which in this version is neither Hendrix or Dylan. "Birds" - the exemplary Neil Young track from "After the Goldrush" is one of my all time favourite songs and though his version is no failure, its more jaunty pace doesn't turns it halfway to gospel hymn rather than ascetic lament, and it doesn't match Kathryn Williams take on it from her "Relations" album (also from 2004.) So, a Paul Weller album for people who don't particularly like Paul Weller? It could be that.