1989 was not the best of years for Paul Weller. The new 'house' direction adopted by The Style Council had alienated fans, leading to mass walkouts at concerts; he suffered the ignominy of having an album rejected and then being dropped by Polydor, the label he had been attached to throughout his career; even Tears For Fear's Roland Orzabal criticised him - albeit obliquely - on this hit 'Sowing the Seeds of Love' with the key line "kick out the style, bring back the jam"! Thus it was that with tail between legs Weller mutedly re-entered the musical arena the following year, ostensibly as a solo artist but with a backing band with the unintentionally amusing monicker of The Paul Weller Movement. At this stage the man who had inspired a generation of teenage rebellion with The Jam was about as trendy as Cannon and Ball. The only audience he had left were blinkered diehards who could never accept that their hero ahd fallen on hard times, and like a cabaret artist he played up to their whims by peppering his set of new songs with some old Jam obscurities.

In 1991 Go! Discs took pity on Weller and offered him a recording deal, the first fruit of which actually offered some hope. The single 'Into Tomorrow' was a purposeful, if not overwhelming comeback; however, the follow-up 'Uh Huh Oh Yeah' was a sparkling return to form, echoing the "Revolver"-era Beatles sound which the Jam had so successfully emulated on "Sound Affects" in 1980. Weller was back in the top twenty, although the critics failed to be aroused and the eponymous album which followed was given an unjust mauling by the press. "Paul Weller" is a wonderfully mellow album with tracks like 'Bullrush' and 'Bitterness Rising' showing he had regained his knack for a canny tune, 'The Strange Museum' and 'Kosmos' displaying a new, successfully experimental side to his repertoire, while stand-out track 'Above The Clouds' is a sumptuous love song. Although the album did moderately well sales-wise, Weller was still widely viewed as an anachronism in the then-current musical climate.

Then, in 1993, something odd happened. The release of the largely unremarkable, unashamedly retro single 'Sunflower' saw a massive turnabout in the opinions of the music press: all of a sudden Weller was cool again and the album that followed, "Wild Wood", was lauded as one of his finest works, despite the fact that it was not a patch on its predecessor. It is undoubtedly a decent piece, with the wistful title track, the rousing 'Has My Fire Really Gone Out?', and the evocative 'Foot of the Mountain' being highlights: but the metamorphosis of Weller into Soulful Country Man was a bit hard to swallow (after all, he is from Woking). There were already signs of the pompous sludge that was to follow, with songs like 'Can You Heal Us Holy Man?' and 'The Weaver' striving too hard to convince us that "he got feeling, man", while 'Shadow of the Sun' meanders aimlessly with barely a semblance of a tune. Still, the general public obviously thought the album was as wonderful as the critics, and they made it double platinum.

Two years on a sense of deja vu occurs: once again a Weller album is trailed by a largely unremarkable, unashamedly retro single ('The Changingman'), and once again it sells by the truckload (even more so than "Wild Wood", selling over a million copies and staying in the top fifty for over a year). However, whereas its predecessor was mostly good, the album "Stanley Road" aims to repeat the same formula but ends up as a watered down, overlong, duller version of its older sibling. The swoonsome 'You Do Something To Me' and the chuntering 'Broken Stones' work well, but stuff like 'Whirlpool's End' and 'Wings of Speed' are tedious in the extreme, and 'Woodcutter's Son' is one of the most risible pieces of music it's ever been my misfortune to hear, a song about how chopping wood makes you a real man. "Stanley Road" ranks as one of the poorest albums in Weller's canon, although nothing could prepare the listener for the tragic "Heavy Soul".

Since the success of "Wild Wood", Weller has cultivated an arrogance that has become increasingly hard to stomach. Surrounding himself with sycophants like Ocean Colour Scene, Noel Gallagher and the ubiquitous Paolo Hewitt (don't ask me what he does, frankly I don't care) has bolstered Weller's already substantial ego to astronomical heights. He believes that his work is beyond criticism, as was shown when an NME writer gave a considered (and to be honest, far too fair) review of "Heavy Soul"; the same day that the magazine was published, Weller allegedly phoned the journalist and offered to beat him up. Another example of his monstrous self-regard was revealed in that year's NME Christmas special, when he was asked to name his ten favourite songs of the year and included the turgid title track of his own album. He is also of the opinion that he kept Go! Discs afloat before they were taken over and he moved to Island. The Beautiful South may think otherwise.

It is gloriously ironic, then, that Weller's vast egotism was the root cause behind the commercial failure of his last album. When he signed with Island he stipulated in the contract that release dates were his responsibility, not the label's (despite the fact that even stars of the magnitude of David Bowie do not get to choose when their material is released). Thus a year after the first single off "Heavy Soul" had been released (the laughable 'Peacock Suit' - what the hell was it about? Grace Brothers???), the album finally saw the light of day with little promotion by Weller himself. Strangely, after the album's initial lack of commercial punch, a string of singles were hurriedly released (not panicking are we Paul?), but it did nothing to lift the unweildly behemoth back into the top fifty. What a shame. And that's where I stopped taking any interest.

So there you have it, the law of diminishing returns. A solo career which began brightly but has slowly degenerated into the mire. To think that this is the man who once wrote 'When You're Young', 'Funeral Pyre' and 'The Bitterest Pill'; or even 'You're The Best Thing', 'Shout To The Top' and 'Walls Come Tumbling Down'. Still, never trust a man who smokes B&H.