The Style Council: Classic or Dud?

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