Paul Weller

As frontman of the new wave act The Jam and the soul duo Style Council, Paul Weller (born May 25th, 1958, in Woking, Surrey) had already made his own indelible mark on British rock long before he started releasing solo albums in 1992. After Style Council split up in 1989, he adopted a more jazz-influenced approach in his songwriting and quickly re-established himself as one of the nation's finest solo artists with 1992's gold-certified Paul Weller, 1993's Top 5 hit Wild Wood, and his first chart-topping solo record, 1995's Stanley Road. The latter album became an inspirational influence on the new Britpop movement spearheaded by groups like Oasis, Pulp and Blur, and he even made a guest appearance as guitarist and background vocalist on the Oasis smash "Champagne Supernova." Albums like 1997's Heavy Soul and 2000's Heliocentric continued to earn critical acclaim and gold certifications, and he enjoyed another UK Number 1 album with 22 Dreams in 2008. One year later, he won the BRIT Award for Best Male Solo Artist and was later named a Godlike Genius at the 2010 NME Awards. The album Wake Up the Nation was released that same year and found him nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. 2012 saw the release of Sonik Kicks, his eleventh studio album, which peaked at Number 1 on the UK Albums Chart. As he penned the track "Let Me In" for Olly Murs' fourth album, he renewed his popularity among younger fans and announced a US tour to promote his twelfth album, Saturn's Pattern. He followed this with A Kind Revolution in 2017, True Meanings in 2018, and On Sunset in 2020, the latter of which saw him return to the top of the UK charts for the first time in eight years. Over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, he recorded a new album, Fat Pop Volume 1, which topped the UK charts in 2021. A live album, An Orchestrated Songbook, was released later that year, featuring contributions from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He celebrated his 66th birthday in May 2024 with the release of seventeenth solo studio album 66, which arrived via Polydor Records and Solid Bond. The LP boasted guest appearances from Noel Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie, Suggs McPherson, and others.