― Omar, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Richard Tunnicliffe, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Andrew, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― stevie, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
As for muso, there's this implication that such people are a) soulless technicians (like, ooh, Kraftwerk or someone) and b) are the sort of people who talk a lot about playing instruments for pleasure. It's a bit of a tired word though.
― Tom, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Yup, muso is a tired word and using it in this case was plain laziness on my part. Particularly as I was reaching more for its connotations of authenticity fetishism rather than either of the meanings Tom mentioned.
I also love the Jam for pretty much the same reasons Stevie doesn't: uptight and claustrophobic. The inside-out apron on TOTP remains a key pop moment for me, and the pop-art imagery seemed enormously potent; still does, I suppose.
Neither is close to being my favourite band ever but both are classic. Paul Weller's solo work has been pretty much exclusively vile, and I can't even stand to look at pictures of him now, far less listen to him. But I love his previous work enough that his current stuff, and his lamentable association with a bunch of wheezing berks like OCS, can't spoil it. At least, not completely.
― Tim, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
In fact it's more than that. At any given time there are usually a few artists who are hated in 'cool' circles beyond any rational explanation. Weller takes the flak from all directions - from the guitar-haters, dad-rock (whatever that is)- haters, 60's-haters, and the post-Britpop backlash. All at once. Dislike doesn't NEED to be rational, but so far in this thread most people have taken the attitude that it's totally UNDERSTOOD that he's crap without giving it a second thought.
I don't agree. The Jam were a great, great band -I don't really like the Style Council, but admire his effort to do something new. The solo work is just fine up to the patchy Heavy Soul and Heliocentric. Yeah it's trad, yeah it has guitars and mellotrons, but I'm not going to feel guilty about liking 'Wildwood' and 'Stanley Road'.
― Dr. C, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
2. I think that Tom is, um, on the money here: it *did* become *has become?) the done thing to praise the SC and knock the Jam. And like him, I find the reality to be a handful of good tracks, not an all-time great band. In fact, come to think of it, it would be a pretty small handful. Depends how big a track is, I suppose.
3. I largely agree with Tim H about the Jam. He's, you know, on the money.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
The Style Council... Our Favourite Shop is a pretty catchy album from beginning to end, "How She Threw It All Way" a great shoulda-been-a- hit... so, Classic.
― Patrick, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I'm not surprised at Omar's response because Weller's entire career, like The Smiths / Morrissey and the Manics, is essentially a UK phenomenon and meaningless in the US and mainland Europe (admittedly the Style Council made a few inroads into the US chart). But what I find curious about Paul Weller, and still has me baffling about the man even today, is how his self-positioning has shifted so violently from aggressively upfront, uptight very parochially-concerned young "face" (the early Jam records), to rather earnest "voice of a generation" (the late Jam records), to some kind of soul-fuelled semi- globalism (TSC), back to earnest rock sweat and irrelevance (solo). I do find it interesting how one man can promote an aspirationally cosmopolitan, culturally ambitious ethos (the naivety of TSC's suburban perception of "sophistication" is what I find charming about it), can shine so brightly and briefly, and then sink so definitively back into the mire from which he came. So the cultural ins-and-outs of Weller I find interesting more than I find most of his music, if you see what I mean.
― Robin Carmody, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I don't see anything particularly contradictory in Weller's directional shifts. The thread that runs through the whole thing is his obsession with 'Mod' and the R&B/Soul of the 60's. It's true that he has a history of embracing fashionable styles (eg the move towards funk in the early 80's, and his conversion to House in the late 80's), but he always harnesses them to his core beliefs. I also don't think it's fair to describe his more recent stuff as 'earnest rock'. It's *intended* to be a joyous return to his roots (he's obviously a great fan of Stevie Winwood & Traffic and they weren't particularly earnest). I'm not saying that everything he's done is great, far from it, but it seems reasonably consistent to me.
― David, Thursday, 26 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
"It's true that he (Weller) has a history of embracing fashionable styles"
Though, on "Confessions of a Pop Group", he went with unfashionable, "timeless" MOR and light-classical styles, which make up the first side of the album which I love. While "How She Threw It All Away" and "Why I Went Missing" from the second side of the album are classic to me, other tracks are a little tepid and stuck in very dated production.
"I also don't think it's fair to describe his recent stuff as 'earnest rock'."
Just that it sounds that way to me. He's aspiring after some notional idea of "joy", but a very cliched soulman's idea, and it all sounds desperately well-meant, as though it was very unexciting and boring to record. While I can see what you mean about Weller having a consistency running through all his work, I do find quite a difference between the "embrace everything; you can have fun *and* be strongly of the left" (quite a fresh approach itself in those dour Scargillian days) ethos the Style Council communicated, and the narrow reference points and complete ideological emptiness of his solo career.
― Rossco, Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:03 (twenty years ago) link
― Bimble brings a lawn chair to antartica so he can sit and drink silver coff (Bim, Sunday, 22 January 2006 10:02 (eighteen years ago) link
5 reasons to hate TSC1. The albums, famously the later stuff2. The cappucino kid sleevenotes3. their attempts at 'rap', ahem4. the jazz pretensions5. the offshoots - especially Respond, Tracie, etc...
― dr x o'skeleton, Monday, 23 January 2006 11:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 23 January 2006 11:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 23 January 2006 11:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― 'Curt' Russell (noodle vague), Monday, 23 January 2006 11:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― joan vich (joan vich), Monday, 23 January 2006 12:10 (eighteen years ago) link
In particular I want to discuss "Confessions Of A Pop Group". I love that album so much that I had to purchase it separately even though I already had the box set. Such an ambitious album...maybe even pretentious...it has some flaws but to me it's filled with a weighty, comforting substance. Their stab at classical music or whatever...just crazy. No one wanted it out of them, no one cared a jot, but yet...look what they did.
That said, "Life At A Top People's Health Farm" is utter crap and even Weller himself said he was unhappy with it later.
"It's A Very Deep Sea" alone should convince anyone they had something uncommonly brilliant to offer here.
― Good Warlock of the West (Bimble...), Sunday, 7 January 2007 06:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― Good Warlock of the West (Bimble...), Sunday, 7 January 2007 06:15 (seventeen years ago) link
I don't know why the song Money Go Round sounds better than ever now, and I've heard it plenty of times already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7Bq9YdDVc8
― Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You, Saturday, 7 June 2008 06:26 (fifteen years ago) link
Listening to The Style Council's The Complete Adventures Of The Style Council box set over the last couple of days, which features all of the material released under The Style Council name throughout their career, plus the unreleased (at the time) lost 'house album'. Listening to their material in this way, I'd say their output was classic until The Cost Of Loving which (maybe 'Waiting' aside) is a massive dud, IMHO. The first side of Confessions Of A Pop Group is classic, and undoubtedly features some of the most adventurous music Weller ever made, and this includes his recent solo stuff. The second half is dud, though, as is the 'house album'.
One thing that I've noticed about The Style Council era from about 1983-1985 is that Weller has a tendency to revisit his songs quite a lot. 'The Paris Match', 'Headstart For Happiness', 'My Ever Changing Moods' to name three were recorded in one or two different arrangements and put out on different releases. Weller didn't really do this very much in either The Jam or his solo career, if at all.
― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Friday, 3 August 2012 21:16 (eleven years ago) link
there's a Style Council documentary on Showtime, interesting, wasn't that familiar with them
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 19 February 2021 02:30 (three years ago) link
Every time I dive into their catalog Weller's inability to sing his own songs distances me, but the concept -- punk rocker anticipating Swing Out Sister -- draws me back.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 19 February 2021 02:52 (three years ago) link
i am going to check them out, have not heard much other than an odd song that might have popped up on a spotify radio station
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 19 February 2021 14:42 (three years ago) link
style council on totp rapping "if you're part of the working class, this issue applies to you!" or something like that was a real "aw, bless" moment.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 19 February 2021 16:30 (three years ago) link
Couple songs live in Japan 1987.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G_A5Bn1Drk
Ever so classic.
― get shrunk by this funk. (Austin), Sunday, 27 February 2022 18:38 (two years ago) link
5. most women want to fuck paul weller
Not sure how well this has aged.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 1 July 2022 21:41 (one year ago) link
There would be no Monocle magazine without The Style Council.
― deep luminous trombone (Eazy), Friday, 1 July 2022 22:40 (one year ago) link
As dismayed as I was by the breaking up of The Jam, the first Style Council EP was a revelation for me when it came out.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, 2 July 2022 14:37 (one year ago) link
I did get to one of the last Jam gigs at Wembley Arena, it was very singalongaJam.
Yes, that first ep told me things were going to be good. Better, even.
― Mark G, Wednesday, 6 July 2022 06:42 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsW27mRYjh4
"the story of someone's shoe" (1988)
i love this song. it sounds amazing, but it's absolutely disgusting.
― "Why is the voice of reason treated as the unreliable narrator?", asked (Austin), Tuesday, 19 July 2022 18:37 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eweq1pnVOF0
wow
― | (Latham Green), Monday, 19 December 2022 13:07 (one year ago) link
Weller struck me during this period as playing at leftish politics.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 19 December 2022 20:37 (one year ago) link
quite
― | (Latham Green), Monday, 19 December 2022 20:54 (one year ago) link
Not a huge Weller fan, but "Boy Who Cried Wolf" is a personal favorite - so smooth. It does annoy Weller fans if you say this is the best thing he's ever done.
― Spencer Chow, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 00:36 (one year ago) link
I like Down in the Seine for the utter moroseness
― | (Latham Green), Tuesday, 20 December 2022 17:05 (one year ago) link