At a time when the album as an art form seems to be losing out to tracks that can be downloaded separately, Paul Weller comes up with a 'double album' with twenty-one songs, which barely fit on a single disc. It is characteristic of the idiosyncrasy of the man, who has acquired an almost untouchable status within British pop. Proof also that the creative juices have started flowing again with the
… singer, who at the time of the cover album Studio 150 (2004) was still struggling with a considerable writer's block. Weller deliberately did not want to limit himself to one style and comes with a varied album on which his entire past comes along, the uptempo pop rock of The Jam, the stylized blue-eyed soul of Style Council and the subdued folk of his first solo albums. That creates welcome contrasts, whereby the whole of 22 Dreams is more than the sum of its parts. Just as an album was once intended. (MS)more
