The Style Council - Jazz Pop Rock (UK)

O Style Council foi formado pelo ex-vocalista e guitarrista do The Jam, Paul Weller e o tecladista Mick Talbot em 1983. Esta formação se expandiu para incluir o baterista Steve White e a vocalista Dee C. Lee (que tornou - se sua esposa e é mãe de dois dos seus filhos; atualmente eles estão separados). Quando necessário outros músicos, incluindo uma banda de metais, eram requisitados. Paul Weller causou grande polêmica quando resolveu acabar com a banda The Jam, em 1983, no auge do sucesso, para formar um grupo com um som mais pop. A banda alcançou o pico do sucesso em 1985 com o álbum Our Favourite Shop, que alcançou o primeiro posto da TOP CHART da Inglaterra. O Style Council se separou em 1989, depois de gravar um álbum de acid house, Modernism: A New Decade, rejeitado pela gravadora Polydor e que fez com que rompessem o contrato. Paul iniciou uma bem-sucedida carreira solo, enquanto Mick Talbot e Steve White se juntaram e continuaram a gravar sob o nome Talbot/White.

Um bom resumo do histórico da banda (infelizmente em inglês):

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 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 No. 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, and the family of David Wilkie. 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. 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. 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 No. 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 No. 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 unknown 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.

“ .... it's something we should have done two or three years ago. We created some great music in our time, the effects of which won't be appreciated for some time. ” 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 Minchella 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 on Weller's solo material.

E seguem nossos álbuns preferidos:

The Style Council- Glastonbury Festival [1985]

The Style Council - In Concert (1999) 

The Singular Adventures of the Style Council

The Singular Adventures of The Style Council is the first greatest hits album by The Style Council, released in 1989. Subtitled Greatest Hits Vol.1, there was never an actual volume two although other Style Council greatest hits albums have been released, such as Greatest Hits in 2000. 

The Style Council - Home & Abroad (1984)

The live album Home & Abroad, which the Style Council released at the height of their popularity, was rather boring and lifeless, showing that they could re-create their sophisticated studio sound on-stage, but it never conveyed how exciting the band could be in person. Released almost a decade after they broke up, In Concert actually does a much better job showing what a vital, unpredictable, and energetic live group the Style Council actually were than the earlier release. The tracks are culled from various concerts over a four-year period and highlight key album cuts, singles, B-sides, tunes they never captured in the studio, and classic soul covers. The group often changes the arrangements of songs, adds (or subtracts) instruments from certain numbers, or gets into extended instrumental jams. the Style Council were never thought of as a very exciting band, but this overview of their concerts shows that they were a unifying and crowd-pleasing live act that was much closer in spirit to a 1960s soul review than to other big 1980s pop groups of the time. Rather than being a cash-in project, In Concert is a must-have for Style Council and Paul Weller fans.

( http://www.allmusic.com/album/in-concert-mw0000464475 )