In 1982 Paul Weller was one of the biggest pop stars in the UK, The Jam notching up 18 consecutive top 40 singles in a five year period, garnering a devoted if somewhat laddish following, helping propel the trio to the singles chart summit on four occasions.
Despite the success, the increasingly agitated Weller
felt shackled, his efforts in shifting their sound in a more soulful direction felt
like pulling teeth in the face of bandmate reluctance, leading to the then 24
year old taking the unilateral decision that Autumn to pull the plug, seemingly
killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Fast forward 9 months and ‘Long Hot Summer’ the languid yet expansive top
5 smash from Weller’s new band ‘The Style Council’ formed with fellow mod revivalist Mick Talbot,
singer DC Lee and drummer Steve White; and
the difference couldn’t have been starker. Mean streets of outer London swapped
for sunlit pavement eateries, beer, fags and aggro seemingly replaced by frothy
cappuccino and erudite conversation, at best confusing and at worst alienating
a considerable portion of the modfather’s previous fanbase. Weller then doubled
down on his two fingered salute in the video, filmed on the River Cam,
reclining shirtless in the sunshine as Talbot punts their boat along, giving
the impression of debonair young lovers; (although you’re in no doubt as to who’s
the daddy), perhaps one of the most homoerotic videos ever made by a straight
bloke who let’s not forget, ended up marrying his new band’s backing singer DC
Lee.
Musically, the Style Council embraced the blue-eyed urbane soul and
R&B Weller craved in his Jam denouement without quite managing to recreate its
bona fide stateside equivalent, despite Talbot’s synths and vocalist DC Lee’s
sublime harmonies making it a close run thing, particularly on tracks like ‘The
Lodgers (Or She Was Only)’ and ‘You’re the Best Thing’. With emotion and
wryness starting to permeate Style Council numbers, notably absent in his Jam
era material, most striking is the band’s ability to create songs rich in
instrumentation yet containing enough space to breathe, testament to Weller’s
working class hero ethic, every song and arrangement polished to a fine mirror
shine despite not pulling it off every time. We get sizeable doses of funk such
as ‘Life at a Top People’s Health Farm’ Gallic jazz in ‘Down on the Seine’ as
well as full on lounge in the gloriously catchy ‘Party Chambers’, B-side to
debut ‘Council single ‘Speak Like a Child’.
Politically, Weller had lurched leftwards from his late 70s angry young Tory
stance, a welcome counterpoint to the early 80s Thatcherite Durandau pop
dominating the charts; the watershed
miners’ strike leading to Weller’s ‘Red Wedge’ period, the Style Council one of
the main performers of the Labour Party supporting musical collective in the
run up to their doomed 1987 election campaign. Songs like ‘Money Go Round’, ‘Come
to Milton Keynes’ and even the sublime instrumental ‘Dropping Bombs on the
Whitehouse’ here in its extended version, doff a cap to those times without ever
quite tapping into the zeitgeist in the same way as Weller’s teen angst Jam
days.
In the light of numerous previous ‘Council collections, this new ‘Career
Anthology’ offering, out on 30 October and remastered at Abbey Road studios
coincides with a new band documentary on Sky Arts. Containing extended tracks,
a new Weller-penned intro, sleeve notes by Martin Freeman it should appeal to
Weller obsessives, and ‘Council completists alike.
With all the hits included as well as many B-sides, it’s perhaps what’s
missing that’s more telling, only 3 tracks from ‘The Cost of Loving’ and
nothing from the final album ‘Modernism: A New Decade’ rejected by Polydor at the time and causing
the band to split, perhaps vindication for Weller’s decision to end his
previous band when a the peak of their popularity.
Words - Mike Price