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STUDIO 150
(V2)
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No matter how much you loved the Jam or what reservations you have about Paul Weller’s current retro-soul direction, it’s obvious that Weller is a far better singer now than he was in Jam days. Once a gruff barker, he’s learned so much about nuance and feeling that he’s become one of the great British soul men. In terms of material, his first all-covers album offers exactly what you’d expect: half vintage soul nuggets and half singer-songwriter standards, with only one song (a good one by Oasis’s Noel Gallagher) written since the mid ‘70s. Studio 150 is a casual, live-in-studio affair, and that’s both the album’s strength and its main drawback. Weller’s in great voice, and there’s a warmth and friendliness to his delivery that hasn’t always come across in his recordings of original material. The soul tunes are predictably fine, even when he hangs a chugging groove and an acoustic guitar on Gil Scott-Heron’s "The Bottle" — an odd arrangement, but it works. Allen Toussaint’s "Hercules" is kept true to the original, but that’s fine: originally sung by a pre-comeback Aaron Neville, it’s one of the toughest songs ever to come out of New Orleans. Weller sings just as well on the non-soul tunes, but the arrangements let him down: his "Close to You" is just eccentric enough to work (sounds like Chicago instead of the Carpenters), but a clumsy horn chart crowds his vocal on Tim Hardin’s "Don’t Make Promises," and he doesn’t bring anything new to "All Along the Watchtower," Bob Dylan’s most over-covered song.
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