My personal favourite track on the album is Shades Of Blue, unforgettably catchy as anything released on any Beatles album, Weller duets with his daughter Leah to achieve magical results, Leah’s angelic voice is a breath of freshly soul plucked air, the complete structure is touched by the hand of genius, this is how you exhibit perfectly emotions in song form. Title track Fat Pop is a slow groover in a similar vein to The Lodgers, but instead of 80’s copycat beats there’s a deep funk bass line gliding the track along, as an acoustic guitar flickers throughout whilst a moog synth sends your mind in and out the speakers mid track, Weller’s lyric ‘who gives a f**k when no one else does’ sends a definitive message to anyone thinking this might be a lyricist who is scared to chop and change words to please his audience, he says what he wants when he wants. Next up is an effortlessly upbeat guitar pop banger True featuring the youthful vocal talents of Lia Metcalfe, from The Mysterines, Metcalfe and Wellers voices fit together perfectly as they echo lyrics back and forth to one another, whilst a sax solo from Jacko Peake sounds like something lifted from The Small Faces reworking of Red Balloon. Paul Weller – Cosmic Fringes (Official Video) – YouTubeĬosmic Fringes carries an anthemic electric shimmy in a similar tone to his 2011 single Starlite, however, instead of a soul edge the album opener edges closer to a dark Bowie type riff with a typically Weller lyric ‘I’m not a product of anything’, this carries a refreshing realism seen throughout his career, similar passion can be found on Back In The Fire, Scrape Away and A Stones Throw Away. Seemingly some good has come from 2020’s lockdown, Weller decided to keep working on new material rather than let his waistline expand, he’s enlarged his catalogue of lauded material with this latest effort. This new album is far from a stinker, The Modfather is on some sort of tremendous musical escapade that’s seen him create alluring, impassioned, buoyant and cheerful music without bowing down to become an informal figure of the industry, far from it, Weller excites and compels time and time again with each release, Fat Pop continuing on from where 2020’s excellent On Sunset left off. Maybe some want him to release a dodgy long player but as Weller has triumphantly echoed time and time again, his fire never goes out and it is such chorusing chimes that reverberate with this latest release. With the eagerly anticipated release of his 16 th solo album entitled Fat Pop (Volume 1), released via Polydor records on May 14 th, it’s about time Paul Weller released a stinker, an album that could devise opinion in his audience such as when This Is The Modern World, The Orange Album or even Confessions Of A Pop Group were released, causing rifts between his followers who were not quite on the same wave length as the Woking Wonder.
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