Will Of The People＜限定盤＞

Bサイドやレア音源等をセレクトした『Fly On The Wall』に続くコンピレーション企画。今回は2002～2021年の音源からアーティストの深堀した魅力を再発見できる、ポール本人による選曲となっている。

A sequel to the 2003 compilation Fly on the Wall: B Sides & Rarities, the 2022 set Will of the People follows the same contours of its predecessor: it rounds up rarities, B-sides, and non-LP cuts Paul Weller released between 2002 and 2021, with the singer himself curating and sequencing the three discs. Thats a lot of ground to cover, encompassing several comebacks and shifts in direction from Weller, changes in course that brought him toward some of his most adventurous music. Will of the People finds cohesion in this wandering by emphasizing soul-inflected jazz-folk, a style that can expand and contract according to both performance and production. Occasionally, the music here drifts out of orbit -- witness the dense dance beats of the 12-minute "Cosmic Fringes" which arrives toward the end of the comp -- and sometimes the intensity is ratcheted up, as it is on "Rip the Pages Up," but generally this stays in an amorphously defined yet pleasingly familiar comfort zone for Weller, playing not as a clearinghouse of stray songs but a long, cohesive guided journey through the past. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine