The Style Council - Long Hot Summer - Non-Album Tracks (1983-1984)

Last week, Paul Weller released a new studio album, "Fat Pop, Volume 1." I'm glad to see he's still going strong. In celebration of that, I wanted to post something from him, but I don't have much worthy from the Jam or his solo career left to post. However, it occurred to me that I've never posted anything from his 1980s band, the Style Council, so here's my first effort related to that band.

I have to admit that, for a long time, I wasn't that big on the Style Council. I much preferred his time with the Jam and his solo work. But I've warmed to the Style Council over the years. What I've decided is that that band put out a lot of good music, on par with his music before and after. But... they also put out some stuff that's best forgotten, so one has to do some work to separate the wheat from the chaff. Weller was in a very musically exploratory mood at the time, which resulted in everything from mellow jazz that approached Muzak to hardcore techno - sometimes on the same album! Also, I think the band started out strong, but went downhill, ending in a whimper with a terrible techno album that his record company refused to release at the time - rightly, in my opinion.

This album focuses on the start of the Style Council - they formed in 1983. Even though this is a stray tracks album, I'd argue this is actually better than any of the band's official studio albums, since those are all inconsistent, and it's right up there with the Jam and Weller's early solo albums. It helps that it has the band's two biggest hits and most enduring songs, "Long Hot Summer" and "My Ever Changing Moods." (The latter song was also included on the band's debut album "Cafe Bleu," but that's a very different and longer acoustic version, whereas the version here is the hit single version.)

Actually, the fact that this album is so good points to a big problem the Style Council had: Weller often put some of the band's worst songs on albums and left some of their best songs off them. One reason for this is that he usually wanted to give band member Mike Talbot some songs on each album, but Talbot's songs were generally mellow jazz often approached Musak that I mentioned earlier. I haven't included any of those here.

Plus, at least when the band started out, Weller continued a habit of not putting many of his hit singles on albums. In fact, most of the songs here are either hits - the two I mentioned above, plus "Speak like a Child," "Money Go Round" and "Solid Bond in Your Heart," which were all Top Ten hits in Britain or close to it - or well chosen soul covers. For instance, he did "One Nation Under a Groove," a funk classic by Parliament / Funkadelic. (All of the covers come from official live albums, which means their sound quality is excellent.) So if you haven't given the Style Council a try, this is an excellent place to start. 

Note that I haven't exhausted all of the band's good stray tracks from 1984. I plan on posting alternate version of their 1984 album "Cafe Bleu," and I'll add some more there.

01 Long Hot Summer (Style Council)
02 Speak like a Child (Style Council)
03 Party Chambers [First Version] (Style Council)
04 Money Go Round, Parts 1 & 2 (Style Council)
05 A Solid Bond in Your Heart (Style Council)
06 It Just Came to Pieces in My Hands (Style Council)
07 My Ever Changing Moods [Single Version] (Style Council)
08 Hanging On to a Memory (Style Council)
09 One Nation Under a Groove (Style Council)
10 Meeting [Over] Up Yonder (Style Council)
11 Up for Grabs (Style Council)

https://www.imagenetz.de/bAkps

For the album cover art, I took the easy path and used the cover to the "Long Hot Summer" single. I didn't change it at all, except for cleaning and sharpening it a bit.