Seven of the thirteen tracks on their 1984 debut, Café Bleu, didn’t even feature Paul Weller singing. Though the core line up soon included teenage drummer Steve White and singer Dee C Lee, they opened up the floor to guest vocalists, rappers and, on 1985’s 'The Stand Up Comic’s Instructions', Lenny Henry doing a turn as a racist club compere. ![]() In its inception the group was more of a modernist pop art experiment, with Weller and his new foil acting as musical directors in a loose collaborative project that could encompass contemporary pop, jazz, blue-eyed soul, hip-hop and Chicago house. In many respects, The Style Council weren’t even a band in the traditional sense. Stuff you’d never get away with doing now.” We just fucking had it and did our own thing. We made so much music – good, bad and whatever – but we tried loads of different things and we didn’t listen to anyone. “I had such a laugh and we had so much fun. Those first three years were so fucking wonderful,” Weller says. It's also the subject of a new documentary on Sky Arts, Long Hot Summers, which offer a colourful rummage through the story of The Style Council: playful, political, sometimes baffling and frequently hilarious. And while there’s probably a fair few of those weepy, parka-clad kids who still haven’t forgiven him, what Weller did next made for an even more unexpected chapter. Paul Weller’s decision to break apart one of the most popular bands since The Beatles, at their commercial peak, remains an act of career hari-kari unparalleled in British pop. “God knows, it’s over 40 years since Ronnie Wood split up The Faces, but I’m still getting over it.” “They were banging on the window shouting at me: ‘You tore them apart!’," recalls Talbot, who still empathises with the kids he says he saw crying on the other side of the glass. ![]() As the path to the stage narrowed, the van was set upon by a mob of angry young fans. It had been barely five months since Weller called time on The Jam, to howls of consternation from suburban bedrooms across the country. Still, Marc Bolan and T Rex are where the heart of the soundtrack lie, and there's a great selection of tunes from him, including not just the omnipresent "Get It On" and "Cosmic Dancer," but the non-LP singles "I Love to Boogie," "Children of the Revolution," and the wonderful "Ride a White Swan." These great songs, when paired with Weller and "London Calling," make the soundtrack to Billy Elliot more infectious than the film itself.On a muddy May afternoon in 1983, Paul Weller and Mick Talbot were sat in the back of a minivan slowly making its way through London’s Brockwell Park, where the pair were due to perform at a CND benefit concert. Weller is represented by the Jam's "Town Called Malice" and two from the Style Council, "Shout to the Top" and "Walls Come Tumbling Down." It's a classic paired with two period pieces, and he comes off well all the same. It's a pair that doesn't seem to work well together on paper - the Slider and the Modfather share a fondness for Northern soul and nice clothes, but their boogie and sophisti-pop appear to be polar opposites - but it all works well here, since they're both terrific singles artists. There are a couple of stragglers here - Stephen Gately, Eagle-Eye Cherry, and the Clash have a song a piece - but for the most part, this is devoted to two great British pop stars, Marc Bolan and Paul Weller. But, if you can ignore that dialogue and concentrate on the music, you have a real nice disc of British pop. ![]() Like any soundtrack with aspirations of being hip, the soundtrack to the heart-warming Brit comedy-drama Billy Elliot is peppered with dialogue from the film - a tactic that was entertaining in 1993, when Reservoir Dogs popularized it, but it had lost its charm by 2000.
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