Most of their premier capers are gathered on Long Hot Summers: The Story of The Style Council, a thirty seven track retrospective tied in with an accompanying documentary. Lee, The Style Council played Live Aid, had a number #1 with Our Favourite Shop and proved themselves time and again to be arch provocateurs. It would all come a messy end in 1989 after their label refused to release the deep-house influenced Modernism: A New Decade, but prior to that with the line-up expanded to include drummer Steve White and vocalist D.C. As they emerged into the backwash of a highly combustible period in British politics – much like now – Weller found himself inspired, able to take his lyrics into more controversial territory than he would’ve been in the past, openly critiquing the capitalist institutions which had held a grip on society since the end of the second world war. Were The Style Council a band, a collective, or just an idea? Why couldn’t Weller be the focal point? (Their debut album Café Bleu found him singing on only six of the thirteen tracks). Initially without much fanfare, The Style Council were born. A meeting with former Merton Parkas keyboardist Mick Talbot had revealed a multitude of shared interests, in European culture, in soul music and internationalism. What would he do next? Something entirely unpredictable. This gamble might sound like commercial suicide, but it’s of a similar of magnitude to the one taken in 1982 by Paul Weller, then front man of The Jam, who after five years of unbroken success announced to a shocked Britain that the trio would be no more. As the audience bathes them in adulation, Noel announces that the band are to split at the peak of their powers, following which he’s immediately going to form a heavy metal band with Bjork and that they’ll never play together again. Imagine this it’s 1996 and the Gallagher brothers have just finished their second triumphant show at Knebworth.
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