It’s on the career of this often brilliant and sometimes underrated band that theartsdesk’s interview with Mick Talbot focuses. The Style Council, meanwhile, are celebrated in a new Sky Arts documentary, Long Hot Summers: The Story of The Style Council, and a double album collection of the same name. Paul Weller went onto a lauded solo career while Mick Talbot has worked with multitudes of artists, notably The Who, Dexy’s, Candi Staton, Galliano, and Mother Earth. After a flirtation with then-nascent house music, The Style Council fizzled into silence. 1988’s Confessions of a Pop Group album was a return to form, but it seemed to come too late. From there, they moved sideways into a slick contemporary American soul sound, meeting with less critical and commercial success. Musically, The Style Council’s amalgam of plush pop, agit-prop and sly satire reached its peak with 1985’s Our Favourite Shop album and “Walls Come Tumbling Down” single, which were followed by an appearance at Live Aid.
They took part in all manner of benefits, from Anti-Apartheid gigs to an association with the Labour Party’s Red Wedge youth initiative, as well as heading up The Council Collective for a single, “Soul Deep”, in aid of the striking miners of 1984. The group, which expanded to include vocalist Dee C Lee and drummer Steve White, also espoused a socialist perspective, offering a passionate counterpoint to Margaret Thatcher’s vision for Britain. With The Style Council, he and Talbot explored soul, funk, jazz, R&B, easy listening, and more, resulting in a golden run of Top 20 hits that lasted for three years and included the likes of the “Speak Like a Child”, “You’re the Best Thing”, “My Ever Changing Moods” (their only US hit), and “Shout to the Top”.
Weller’s plan was to escape the lad-friendly guitar sound of The Jam.
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