Cafe Bleu - The Style Council (1984)
I’d love to tell you that I’m a big fan of Paul Weller and I know a bunch about his long and varied career.
I’d be lying. While it seems like he’s always doing something interesting and people are often talking about how he follows his own muse, I just don’t know that much about the guy. He started out in The Jam, a punk-era band that was far more mod than punk, always looking for something a little more than a guitar-bass-drums sound.
Once he decided the band couldn’t do what he wanted, he left and started Style Council with keyboardist Mick Talbot. Together, they branched out fully into jazz-inflected soul
If there’s a theme that seems to emerge from reading about Style Council, it’s that they never really just stuck to being a band. Multiple, vastly different styles even on the same release. Multiple versions of albums. Releasing things under names that weren’t Style Council. Releasing different versions in the US vs the UK. The argument that “this is how The Beatles and The Who did it” didn’t hold much water in the slick and ruthless music biz of the 80s. The end result was a band that as nobody could quite nail down and as a result a band that could never count on a following to buy their records.
That’s a disservice to their music, especially this debut album. It’s strong soul all the way through, with lots of subtlety and beauty along with some great grooves.
From the 90s onwards, Weller would become one of the most beloved and long-lived solo artists in the UK. Style Council was an interesting side trip that might have contributed to what Weller would become.
