The Style Council were an
English musical group formed in 1983 by ex-
The Jam singer and guitarist
Paul Weller with keyboardist
Mick Talbot. Both Weller and Talbot had played a significant part in the
Mod Revival. The first couple of singles featured drummer Zeke Manyeka. The Style Council also featured a singer called
Tracie Young who had solo hits with "The House That Jack Built" and "Give It Some Emotion" on Weller's Respond label. Young can be heard providing emotive and solid backing vocals on "Boy Who Cried Wolf" (1984). The U.S. release of "My Ever Changing Moods" included Tracey Thorn of Everything But The Girl singing the Weller composition "Paris Match." The permanent lineup grew to include drummer
Steve White and Weller's then-wife, vocalist
Dee C. Lee. Other musicians, including a horn section, were brought in as required.
The band's early singles showed a diversity of musical styles. Speak Like a Child (with its loud soul-influenced style), the extended funk of Money-Go-Round and the haunting synth-ballad Long Hot Summer all featured Talbot on keyboards and organ. These singles were compiled on "Introducing The Style Council" towards the end of 1983. This was a mini-album released in Holland and Japan. The Dutch version was heavily imported to the UK.
In 1984, the single "My Ever-Changing Moods" B/W the Hammond Organ instrumental "Mick's Company" reached #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, remaining to this day Weller's greatest success on the American charts, while the group reached the peak of their success in the UK with the 1985 album Our Favourite Shop.
However, to Weller's fans, the decision to split up The Jam at the height of their commercial success was met with considerable controversy. Weller deliberately distanced himself from The Jam's sound and style, with his use of new musical arrangements and instruments in a much slicker, more heavily produced style. In the place of the Bruce Foxton-Rick Buckler rhythm section were drum and bass parts done entirely on synthesisers. Along with this, the band's early persona - the donning of make-up and New Romantic-style clothing, coupled with mysterious album sleeve notes by "The Cappuccino Kid" (a pseudonym for Paolo Hewitt, biographer of The Jam and friend of Weller), the use of French lyrics and themes (reflected in the titles of their third single, the 1983 À Paris EP, which saw the duo posing in front of the Eiffel Tower, and their debut full-length LP, 1983's Café Bleu), dabblings in rap and, later, dance music, and the homoerotic imagery in the video for the single "Long Hot Summer", only served to further confuse and alienate loyal Jam fans. Structurally, many of the band's early singles were not far removed from The Jam's latter-day soul-pop efforts such as "Town Called Malice" and "Beat Surrender", but they were often criticised as overproduced, despite Weller's impressive songwriting. Moreover, many observers saw even the early albums as indulgent and overly experimental; Trouser Press called Café Bleu "too schizophrenic to be a good album". The criticism only grew as the band's career wore on, and Weller's star status in the UK plunged.
The Style Council took a more overtly political approach than The Jam in their lyrics, with tracks such as "Walls Come Tumbling Down", "The Lodgers", and "Come To Milton Keynes" being deliberate attacks on "Middle England" and the Thatcherite principles which were prevalent in the 1980s. Weller was also instrumental in the formation of Red Wedge with Billy Bragg. However, he has more recently expressed that this began to detract from the music - "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".
In 1986 the band released a live album, Home and Abroad, and in 1987 the album The Cost of Loving was launched, followed later in the year by the upbeat single "Wanted (Or Waiter There's Some Soup In My Flies)". However, by the time "Confessions of a Pop Group" was released a year later, the group's popularity had largely evaporated.
The Style Council broke up after recording a house album, Modernism: A New Decade that was rejected by their record label. Weller moved on to a more commercially successful solo career (still featuring Steve White on drums) while Talbot and White released two albums as Talbot/White -- United States of Mind (1995) and Off the Beaten Track (1996). More recently Mick and Steve have formed "The Players" with Damon Minchella (Ocean Colour Scene/Paul Weller) and Aziz Ibrahim (Ian Brown).
All of the Style Council's United Kingdom releases (including singles, 12" maxis, albums, compact discs and re-issues thereof) featured the work of graphic designer Simon Halfon (often working with Weller and honing his ideas into a graphic). Weller and Halfon began working together at the end of the Jam's career, and continue to work together to this day on Weller's solo material. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Style_Council
