The Style Council: You’re The Best Thing
Continuing my week-long focus on the career of Paul Weller, today’s selection is from The Style Council. After six successful years of recording with The Jam, the band broke up and Weller found himself open to a breadth of musical possibilities. No longer hemmed in by the post-punk of his old band, he made the obvious step of forming a new band that embraced the R&B that had always influenced his songwriting. The Style Council, much like The Jam, never made much impact in the U.S., but their catalog is prime-grade blue eyed soul and R&B. Their singles should have been heavily played on MTV during the same years that so many other artists were reaping the rewards of the pop/R&B crossover that defined the pop charts of the early to mid ’80s. To put this in perspective – The Jam had dozens of UK Top 40 hits and ZERO US Top 40 hits. The Style Council had 15 UK Top 40 hits and ONE US Top 40 hit. Why this is true is a mystery to me, but I now listen to The Style Council much more than I listen to their contemporaries such as Culture Club, Thompson Twins, Spandau Ballet, and dozens of other bands now lost to time. Much like The Jam, my love of The Style Council is due to the influence of Ms. Faux – she understood the genius of Paul Weller when she was 13 years old, while most of the world have yet to catch on.
To learn more about The Style Council, check out their Wikipedia page.
To listen to all of the songs of the day, check out the Radio Faux Show Song of the Day playlist.
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