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The Style Council were an English pop band formed in Woking in 1982 by Paul Weller, the former lead vocalist, principal songwriter and guitarist with the rock band the Jam, and keyboardist Mick Talbot, previously a member of Dexys Midnight Runners, the Bureau and the Merton Parkas.[5] Weller started the project to escape the restrictions of the Jam, and to explore a more arty, European, jazzier direction,[6] which encompassed pop, hip hop, and soul.[7][8]
The permanent line-up grew to include drummer Steve White and Weller's then-girlfriend, vocalist Dee C. Lee.[9] Other artists such as Tracie Young, Tracey Thorn (Everything but the Girl) and drummer/percussionist Steve Sidelnyk[10][11] (who has played for Madonna, Seal and Richard Ashcroft[12]) also performed and collaborated with the group. As with Weller's previous band, most of the London-based group's hits were in their homeland, where they scored seven top 10 hits.[9] The band also had hit singles and albums in Australia and New Zealand during the 1980s.[13]
Formation and early releases
The band was founded in Woking, Surrey in late 1982 by Paul Weller and initially consisted only of himself and Mick Talbot, who Weller said he chose because "he shares my hatred of the rock myth and the rock culture".[14] The band showed a diversity of musical styles. Singles "Speak Like a Child" (with its loud soul-influenced style), the extended funk of "Money-Go-Round", and the synth-ballad "Long Hot Summer" all featured Talbot on keyboards and organ, and reached number 4, number 11 and number 3, respectively, on the UK Singles Chart.[15] Near the end of 1983, these songs were compiled on Introducing The Style Council, a mini-LP initially released in the US, Canada, Japan, and the Netherlands only. The Dutch version was heavily imported to the United Kingdom. In November 1983, the single "A Solid Bond in Your Heart" reached number 11 on the UK singles chart.[15]
Café Bleu (1984)
In February 1984, the single "My Ever Changing Moods" became the band's third Top 10 hit on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 5. Released a month later, their debut studio album, Café Bleu, entered the UK Albums Chart at number 2. Excluding previous singles (except for a different version of "My Ever Changing Moods") and vocals by Weller on several tracks, the album features guest vocalists and instrumentals, and mixes several genres, such as jazz, soul, pop, and funk; for these reasons, it divided critics and confused fans.[16] Nevertheless, the album spent 36 weeks on the chart and was followed by two further Top 10 singles, "You're the Best Thing" in May and "Shout to the Top!" in October.[15]
The album was complemented by a UK tour starting in March 1984 with supporting acts Billy Bragg and the Scottish pop band the Questions. These shows were dubbed "Council Meetings" and were followed by a brief European tour. Later the band played four dates in Japan, where they became hugely popular. These shows were captured on the video Far East and Far Out, released in September 1984.[17] The band set out on their second "Council Meetings" UK tour in the autumn, this time with DJ Vaughn Toulouse. The shows were also intended to include a half-hour play directed by Tony Marchant instead of a support band, but the play was pulled in the last minute when one of the actors broke his leg. The UK dates were followed by dates in Italy were huge demands for tickets in Bologna forced a last-minute switch to a bigger venue.[18]
In 1984, the band also undertook a brief tour of the United States.[19][20] This led to the single "My Ever Changing Moods"[a] reaching No. 29 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The song remains the group's and Weller's highest charting US single, including his period with the group the Jam and also as a solo artist. By the end of 1984, the Style Council were voted "best new band" in Billboard magazine.[17]
In December 1984, "Soul Deep", a fund-raising single for striking miners, was released under the name "the Council Collective" (featuring Vaughn Toulouse, Dee C. Lee, Leonardo Chignoli of Animal Nightlife, Junior Giscombe and US Motown artist Jimmy Ruffin), reaching the top 30 on the UK singles chart.[22] The Style Council ended the year playing two nights at the Royal Albert Hall.[18]
Our Favourite Shop (1985)
In the UK, the group reached the height of its popularity with the release of Our Favourite Shop, which entered the UK album chart at number 1 immediately following its release in June 1985 (only to be supplanted by Bryan Ferry's solo studio album Boys and Girls a week later).[23][24] Mixing different styles such as Latin music, jazz and funk, and largely featuring political lyrics, it was widely considered to be the band's best work by contemporary critics.[25] It notched up a total of 13 weeks in the UK top 40 (including a re-entry in October), of which three weeks were spent in the top 10.[26] The preceding single "Walls Come Tumbling Down!" reached number 6 on the singles chart, while "Come to Milton Keynes" and "The Lodgers" reached number 23 and 13, respectively.[15] A fourth single "Boy Who Cried Wolf" was released in the US and was a chart hit in New Zealand.[27] Worldwide, it reached over one million sales.[25] In 2015, Our Favourite Shop was included in a list of 50 albums released in 1985 which, according to the NME, "still sound great today".[28]
Together with "You're the Best Thing" (from Café Bleu) and "The Big Boss Groove", two songs from the album—"Internationalists" and "Walls Come Tumbling Down!"—were played by the band at the UK Live Aid concert,[29] where they appeared second in the running order at Wembley Stadium between Status Quo and the Boomtown Rats.[30] The international exposure, however, did little to boost the group's career, and future commercial success was largely confined to their home country.[31]
Further albums
Following the live album Home and Abroad in 1986 the band released their third studio album The Cost of Loving to mixed reviews in 1987. It reached number 2 on the UK Albums Chart. The single from the album, "It Didn't Matter" reached number 9 on the singles chart.[15]
The Cost of Loving saw the group concentrating on the R&B styles that had been growing in America during the eighties. Its urban contemporary feel was a jolt to listeners who had grown accustomed to the continental mix of soul music, jazz, and European folk styles that the band had displayed on their previous two studio albums. United States label Geffen Records heard the tracks and promptly dropped the Style Council from their roster. Socially conscious soul music pioneer Curtis Mayfield was asked to mix some of the material on the album, which displays hints of being influenced by house music and the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis sound. Tracks from the album were included in a 37-minute film, Jerusalem, about the band.
Commercial and critical decline
From this point the band however started to experience a critical and commercial decline. The 1987 single "Waiting" was the first of the band's singles that failed to reach the UK top 40.[15] In 1988 Confessions of a Pop Group became the first of their albums that failed to reach the top 10. It entered the albums chart at number 15 and dropped out of the chart a few weeks later. The singles "Life at a Top People's Health Farm" and "How She Threw It All Away" also made brief chart appearances, peaking at number 28 and 41, respectively.[15]
In 1989, members of the Style Council went under the name of King Truman to release a single on Acid Jazz Records titled "Like a Gun". This was unknown to Polydor, and the single was pulled from the shops three days prior to release. Acid Jazz founder Eddie Piller said: "The pair offered to make a single for my new label, which I'd just started with [BBC] Radio 1 DJ Gilles Peterson as a side project. Talbot and Weller took pseudonyms Truman King and Elliott Arnold."[32]
The Style Council broke up in 1989. Regarding the break-up, Paul Weller said (in 1990):
It's something we should have done two or three years ago. We created some great music in our time, the effects of which won't be appreciated for some time.[33]
The cover version of "Promised Land" (originally by Joe Smooth) was the only release which surfaced from the Modernism: A New Decade sessions at the time; reaching its peak position at no. 27 on the UK Singles Chart in February 1989.[15] However, the entire studio album was subsequently released in 1998 in a 5-CD box set, The Complete Adventures of The Style Council with a standalone version being released in October, 2001. A few months later, a version of their 1983 hit "Long Hot Summer" entitled "Long Hot Summer '89" was released as the Style Council's swan song single, briefly charting in the UK, reaching its peak position at no. 48 in May 1989.[15]
In 1990, the band reunited (without Lee) for a one-off performance on Japanese TV.[34]
2019 reunion
Weller, Talbot, Lee and White met for a recording session of "It's a Very Deep Sea" in August 2019. The session was featured in the 2020 Sky Arts documentary Long Hot Summers: The Story of the Style Council, and a career-spanning audio compilation of the same name was released.[35]
In December 1984, Weller put together an ensemble called the Council Collective to make a charity record, "Soul Deep", initially to raise money for striking miners during a long-running industrial dispute, and subsequently also for the family of David Wilkie, a taxi driver who was killed during said strike. The track featured the Style Council and a number of other performers, notably Jimmy Ruffin[36] and Junior Giscombe. The song received airplay on BBC Radio 1 and was performed by the group on Top of the Pops,[37] as well as (live) on Channel 4's The Tube.[38]
In their lyrics, the Style Council took a more overtly political approach than the Jam, with tracks such as "Walls Come Tumbling Down!", "The Lodgers" and "Come to Milton Keynes" being deliberate attacks on middle England and the Thatcherite policies of the UK government during the 1980s. In 1985, Weller was persuaded by Billy Bragg to let the Style Council play a leading role in Red Wedge, a youth-orientated political campaign associated with the British Labour Party. Although his views at the time have since been described as those of a "traditional British socialist", in 1993 Weller admitted the experience had left him feeling "exploited" by politicians, noting further that: "Before the Wedge, the Style Council had done a lot independently, raised a lot of money in benefits. But after the Wedge we were so disillusioned it all stopped. We were totally cynical about all of it."[39] In a previous interview, whilst asserting that there was still "a place for outspokenness" in popular music, Weller had pointed out he was "first and foremost" a musician, and stated: "In the '80s, in the Style Council, we were involved with a lot of political things going on at that time. I think after a while that overshadowed the music a bit."[40]
Studio albums
- Café Bleu (North America title: My Ever Changing Moods) (1984)
- Our Favourite Shop (North America title: Internationalists) (1985)
- The Cost of Loving (1987)
- Confessions of a Pop Group (1988)
- Modernism: A New Decade (1998)
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