The Style Council

All Music Guide:

Guitarist/vocalist Paul Weller broke up the Jam, the most popular British band of the early '80s, at the height of their success in 1982 because he was dissatisfied with their musical direction. Weller wanted to incorporate more elements of soul, R&B, and jazz into his songwriting, which is something he felt his punk-oriented bandmates were incapable of performing. In order to pursue this musical direction, he teamed up in 1983 with keyboardist Mick Talbot, a former member of the mod revival band the Merton Parkas. Together, Weller and Talbot became the Style Council -- other musicians were added according to what kind of music the duo were performing. With the Style Council, the underlying intellectual pretensions that ran throughout Weller's music came to the forefront.

Although the music was rooted in American R&B, it was performed slickly -- complete with layers of synthesizers and drum machines -- and filtered through European styles and attitudes. Weller's lyrics were typically earnest, yet his leftist political leanings became more pronounced. His scathing criticisms of racism, unemployment, Margaret Thatcher, and sexism sat uneasily beside his burgeoning obsession with high culture. As his pretensions increased, the number of hits the Style Council had decreased; by the end of the decade, the group was barely able to crack the British Top 40 and Weller had turned from a hero into a has-been.

Released in March of 1983, the Style Council's first single "Speak Like a Child" became an immediate hit, reaching number four on the British charts. Three months later, "The Money-Go-Round" peaked at number 11 on the charts as the group was recording an EP, Paris, which appeared in August; the EP reached number three. "Solid Bond in Your Heart" became another hit in November, peaking at number 11.

The Style Council released their first full-length album, Cafe Bleu, in March of 1984; two months later, a resequenced version of the record, retitled My Ever Changing Moods, was released in America. Cafe Bleu was Weller's most stylistically ambitious album to date, drawing from jazz, soul, rap, and pop. While it was musically all over the map, it was their most successful album, peaking at number five in the U.K. and number 56 in the U.S. "My Ever Changing Moods" became their first U.S. hit, peaking at number 29. In the summer of 1985, the Style Council had another U.K. Top Ten hit with "The Walls Come Tumbling Down." The single was taken from Our Favourite Shop, which reached number one on the U.K. charts; the record was released as Internationalists in the U.S. The live album, Home and Abroad, was released in the spring of 1986; it peaked at number eight.

The Style Council had its last Top Ten single with "It Didn't Matter" in January of 1987. The Cost of Loving, an album that featured a heavy emphasis on jazz-inspired soul, followed in February. Although it received unfavorable reviews, the record peaked at number two in the U.K. That spring, "Waiting" became the group's first single not to crack the British Top 40, signalling that their popularity was rapidly declining. In July of 1988, the Style Council released their last album, Confessions of a Pop Group, which featured Weller's most self-important and pompous music -- the second side featured a ten-minute orchestral suite called "The Gardener of Eden." The record charted fairly well, reaching number 15 in the U.K., but it received terrible reviews. In March of 1989, the Style Council released a compilation, The Singular Adventures of the Style Council, which reached number three on the charts. Later that year, Weller delivered a new Style Council album, which reflected his infatuation with house and club music, to the band's record label Polydor. Polydor rejected the album and dropped both the Style Council and Weller from the label.

Paul Weller and Mick Talbot officially broke up the Style Council in 1990. In 1991, Weller launched a solo career which would return him to popular and critical favor in the mid-'90s, while Talbot continued to play, both with Weller and as a solo musician.

Wikipedia:

The Style Council were an English band, formed in 1983 by the ex-The Jam singer and guitarist Paul Weller, with keyboardist Mick Talbot. The permanent line-up grew to include drummer Steve White and Weller's then-wife, vocalist Dee C. Lee. Other artists such as Tracie Young and Tracey Thorn (Everything but the Girl) also collaborated with the group. As with Weller's previous band, most of this London based outfit's hits were in their homeland, although the band did score six top 40 hits in Australia, and seven top 40 hits in New Zealand.

History

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 haunting synth-ballad "Long Hot Summer" all featured Talbot on keyboards and organ. Near the end of 1983, these songs were compiled on Introducing The Style Council, a mini-album initially released in Japan, the Netherlands, Canada, and the US only. The Dutch version was heavily imported to the United Kingdom.

In 1984, the single "My Ever-Changing Moods", backed with the Hammond organ instrumental "Mick's Company", reached #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. The song remains Weller's greatest success in the US (including his efforts in The Jam and as a solo artist), while the group reached the peak of its success in the UK with the 1985 album Our Favourite Shop.

In December 1984, Weller put together a charity ensemble, the Council Collective, to make a record, "Soul Deep", to raise money for striking miners. The record featured The Style Council plus a number of other performers, notably Jimmy Ruffin and Junior Giscombe. In spite of the song's political content, it still picked up BBC Radio 1 airplay and was performed on Top of the Pops, which led to the incongruous sight of lyrics such as "We can't afford to let the government win / It means death to the trade unions" being mimed amid the show's flashing lights and party atmosphere.

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 Thatcherite principles prevalent in the 1980s. Weller was also instrumental in the formation of Red Wedge with Billy Bragg. However, he later said 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 Cost of Loving was launched, followed later in the year by the non-album single "Wanted", which reached #20 in the UK Singles Chart. However, Confessions of a Pop Group, released a year later, sold poorly. This led to their record label Polydor rejecting their final album (Modernism: A New Decade), which was influenced by the house scene. A greatest hits album, The Singular Adventures of The Style Council, was released internationally in 1989; it included the non-album single "Promised Land", which had reached #27 in the UK earlier that year.

In 1989 members of The Style Council went under the name of 'King Truman' to release a single on Acid Jazz titled "Like A Gun". This was unbeknown to Polydor, and the single was pulled from the shops only 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 Radio 1 DJ Gilles Peterson as a side project. Talbot and Weller took pseudonyms Truman King and Elliott Arnold."

The Style Council broke up in 1989.

Paul Weller - NME - March 1990

The cover version of "Promised Land" (originally by Joe Smooth) was the only release which surfaced from the Modernism sessions at the time; however, the entire album was released in 1998, both independently and in a 5-CD box set, The Complete Adventures of The Style Council. After the split, Weller embarked on a successful solo career (which featured Steve White on drums, who had left The Style Council by the time Confessions of a Pop Group was released, having only played on a few of its tracks). Talbot and White released two albums as Talbot/White — United States of Mind (1995) and Off The Beaten Track (1996). Talbot and White then formed The Players with Damon Minchella and Aziz Ibrahim. White and Minchilla went onto form Trio Valore whilst Talbot went touring with Candi Staton in 2009.

All of The Style Council's UK releases (including singles, 12" maxis, albums, compact discs and re-issues thereof) featured the work of graphic designer Simon Halfon, who often collaborated with Weller to hone his ideas into a graphic form. 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.

Since 2007, the song "Walls Come Tumbling Down" has been used as the theme song for the German TV series Dr. Psycho – Die Bösen, die Bullen, meine Frau und ich.