Brief 50: The Style Council

There was a documentary about The Style Council on Sky recently, called 'Long Hot Summers', and there's also been a Weller-curated Best Of with the same name, which I've been listening to.

I've always felt Weller himself is pretty keen on The Style Council - in a way, more so than the Jam. You can tell he enjoyed it more, and he wants the band to get a bit of respect.

I bought The Style Council Greatest Hits on the same day in 1994 as I bought The Jam Greatest Hits, which was probably a few weeks before someone taped Wild Wood for me so, for me, it's always all gone together, and it's hard to separate each act out.

Although I enjoyed them perfectly much to begin with, I remember once, just as I was trying to have it known that I was now a cool guy with varied music taste, I'd put on the Style Council, and an older boy, who had good music taste himself and had, up to that point, enjoyed what I was putting on, switched one of their more 80s-sounding tracks off in disgust, saying something like "no, this time you've gone too far".

How would I perceive The Style Council if (as I suppose may be true for lots of people) there was no connection to The Jam or Weller's long solo career. I think I probably would think them one of the best British bands of the mid-80s (which is not a period I love much). I'd think they had a kinship with Dexys Midnight Runners, a political British soul band with a single-minded, awkward leader and a flexible line up, a tendency to pretension and over-stretching, but a great ability to mix up memorable pop tunes with melancholy and diatribes. And, of course, they shared Mick Talbot.

A way to look at our long-lasting icons is, if you had only one set idea of them "wow, i would not expect that of them" - like, if someone thought of Dylan in terms of nasal young protest guy and croaky old guy, you'd play them him singing 'I Threw It All Away' on The Johnny Cash Show.

So, with Weller, if you have one or both of  'In The City' suited punk and 'Changing Man' dadrock perennial, then the sight of him crooning 'You're the Best Thing' with slicked back hair or, more strikingly, dancing pointily on Top of the Pops in 1989 while performing a cover of the house tune 'Promised Land', and the fact that none of this is that far apart, is pretty striking.

Anyway, there was a real sweetness to the documentary, a word that you don't often associate with Weller. There was even a reunion of sorts - the four core members - Weller, Talbot, drummer Steve White and Dee C Lee (also Weller's first wife) singing album track 'It's a Very Deep Sea' at the end.

Although The Jam remains, of course, my favourite Weller, I'd say his best solo stuff has more in common with The Style Council. They're a band with a solid handful of great pop songs and some very pretty other stuff too. And his dancing ... engaging ....