The Style Council: Classic or Dud?

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.

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.

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.

"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.

5 reasons to hate TSC
1. The albums, famously the later stuff
2. The cappucino kid sleevenotes
3. their attempts at 'rap', ahem
4. the jazz pretensions
5. the offshoots - especially Respond, Tracie, etc...

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.

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

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.

there's a Style Council documentary on Showtime, interesting, wasn't that familiar with them

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.

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

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.

Couple songs live in Japan 1987.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G_A5Bn1Drk

Ever so classic.

5. most women want to fuck paul weller

Not sure how well this has aged.

There would be no Monocle magazine without The Style Council.

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.

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.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eweq1pnVOF0

wow

Weller struck me during this period as playing at leftish politics.

quite

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.

I like Down in the Seine for the utter moroseness