Ever since the first British invasion brought Beatlemania to America, England and the US have had a symbiotic pop-music relationship: we've exported our African-American musical traditions, and the Brits have spit it all back at us reworked into mainstream pop products. That was true by the end of the '60s, on up through the punk revolution of the '70s, and into the MTV-fueled new-wave moves of the '80s, when stylish pretty boys like Duran Duran became an overnight sensation on these shores. By the '90s, it seemed as if three decades of pop history had finally been consolidated into the Britpop juggernaut known as Oasis, with their potent mix of Beatlesque melodies, punkish fuck-all attitude, and roguish good looks. And yet, Oasis also stood as a prime example of just how far apart England and the US could be when it came to pop music, since the Noel & Liam show never generated the kind of dominating commercial momentum in the US that it had in their native England.

In that sense, Oasis were simply the latest chapter in an ongoing alternate story of Brit-pop, one that illustrates the vast cultural gulf that opened between the UK and USA in the decades following the Beatles. And though they stand as the latest example of a British pop-success story that never fully translated into a transatlantic triumph, there's probably no better living embodiment of the considerable differences that exist beneath the surface similarities on the pop charts in the two countries than Paul Weller, the former leader of the Jam and Style Council who's been racking up Top 10 singles in England for almost three decades without making a dent in the States. Indeed, since 1977, when he emerged as the frontman of the mod-punk Jam, Weller has scored no fewer than 57 Top 40 singles in England, where 26 of the 40 albums that he's put his name to have likewise ended up in the Top 40. That includes his latest full-length, Illumination, which debuted at #1 on the British charts when it was first released back in September. Although Weller released successful solo albums in England in both 2000 (Heliocentric) and 2001 (Days of Speed), Illumination will be his first release in six long years here in the US when it finally comes out this week, not on any of our major labels but on the tiny, North Carolina-based indie Yep-Roc.

Weller began his rise to his current role in Britain's rock royalty at the helm of the Jam, a raucous guitar-powered trio who couldn't help looking like a punk band from these shores, even if their real allegiance lay with the R&B-loving traditions of the suit-and-tied Vespa-riding mods -- the same youth movement the rebellious Who had allied themselves with two decades earlier. By the time he'd moved on from the Jam to front the cardigan-clad continental-pop outfit Style Council, Weller had already established himself as one of England's favorite sons even as he remained almost completely out of step with the American pop mainstream. And that's been his story ever since, as he's split the difference between the guitar-fueled rock of the Jam and the moodier, blue-eyed-soul stirrings of the Style Council.

Illumination doesn't make any concessions toward what's happened in the realm of American rock over the past few decades. Its touchstones, though rooted in the music of American soul stylists like Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, are almost completely British in that the only place you're likely to find Weller's favorite kind of classic American R&B making a commercial impact in the US these days is as a sampled snippet in a hip-hop production. Weller draws much of his inspiration from the same American sources that have had a much greater direct influence on successful British rockers since the '70s than on their American counterparts. And it's all filtered through a British sensibility that encompasses the arch social critique of the feedback-laced anti-gun anthem "A Bullet for Everyone," the literate romanticism of the soulful "Leafy Mysteries," and the wry, Kinksy, music-hall satire of "Push Button, Automatic."

The surprising degree to which Weller has remained relevant in the British rock mainstream is driven home by the young friends in high places who turn up on Illumination -- Oasis's Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer, Steve Cradock and Damon Minchella from Ocean Color Scene, and Kelly Jones from the Stereophonics. But as Weller gears up for his first US tour since 1997 -- a tour that will bring him to Avalon in Boston on February 21 -- it's hard to ignore the relative difficulty all three of those bands have had in finding an American audience.

Issue Date: January 10 - 16, 2003