8/3/2023 0 Comments The lodgers the style council![]() As tremendous as they are, they don’t fully explain the full gamut of what The Style Council offered this is an anthology to showcase what made them quite so special. It’s not a consecutive run through of just the singles. ![]() The new compilation is very much the story of The Style Council as the title suggests. Hell, even Lenny Henry crops up on Our Favourite Shop. The original plan was of featuring a rotating array of collaborators such as protégé Tracie Young, Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt, percussionist Steve Sidelnyk and members of London’s jazz, classical and funk scenes. Alongside Mick Talbot, the key line-up expanded to a quartet of Weller, Talbot, then-teenage drummer Steve White and ex- Wham! and Central Line songstress Dee C Lee – and the four of them roamed the charts and TV studios for the entire decade. Gallivanting around Paris with a sweater around his neck and refashioning himself as ‘The Cappuccino Kid’, tongue-in-cheek-ly observing the world like a hot situationalist puffing on countless Gauloise snouts from a table outside a café. ![]() It’s basically Paul Weller shedding the clumpy mantle of being a spokesman for a generation (man) and having a bit of a lark. While they may not have had the chart-topping success of The Jam – the only top spot occupant was their magnificent 1985 album Our Favourite Shop – in some ways this relaxed worry-free agenda allowed the group to excel in roaming down more eclectic avenues. The young idea was still very much in evidence, but rebooted to navigate the increasingly shinier and brasher waters of the eighties pop landscape. No longer standing on the scaffolding because they were about shock and young adults, yet far more forthright in an era of Thatcherism, the Miner’s Strike and becoming the leading light in Red Wedge. They were more political than The Jam – more insightful, angrier, artier, scathing, cosmopolitan, European and fun. However, they took it all very seriously. Romping around stroking each other’s ears in videos, photoshoots with Boy George, looking a bit narked on Band Aid and out of place at Live Aid, making films such as Jerusalem (the wonky pop film that makes Pet Shop Boys’ It Couldn’t Happen Here seem quite straightforward). Maybe it was because Weller and cohort Mick Talbot – the organist who’d done time in Merton Parkas and Dexys – weren’t seen as taking it quite so 4 Real as some would’ve liked. So maybe that’s why The Style Council were considered not as ‘real’ or taken as seriously, which is a cobblers take, quite frankly. One more time for those at the back – it’s Not. But there’s more chance of The Beatles reforming than The Jam. That, even now, Weller gigs are populated by a small portion of balding feather-cutted gents bussed in from the hamlet of Modley Mod and underestimating the slimming powers of their Fred Perry tops, patiently letting Paul ‘get this weird experimental stuff out of his system’ while hoping for a run through of Jam toe-taps, shows the level of passion there still is out there. If there’d been helplines for such a thing, there’d no doubt have been tales of weeping mods and soul boys dialling in to express their distress. A band so significant that their entire catalogue re-charted after their demise, and one of the few to juggle imported releases clogging up the chart between the release of official numbers. The Jam clocked up a staggering array of hits, including four number ones – three of which entered that position on their first week – something The Beatlesonly managed once. That’s facts.ĭispensing of a band that meant so much at the height of their fame was a gamble, but also utterly punk. That might have pleased the faithful, but you know that Paul Wellerwouldn’t have the status or respect he has now if he’d milked it. Well maybe they could have, but the wheels would have long come off by the middle of the decade, the number ones would have dropped off, and a lowering of standards would’ve been par for the course as the audience and venues got more selective. In praise of The Style Council: Ian Wade reviews the new compilationįirst up, let’s enjoy some context: The simple fact of the matter is that The Jam couldn’t last. ![]()
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