His first band, the Jam, produced a string of UK hits between 19, and there was widespread consternation in the British press when Weller left to form the Style Council with keyboardist Mick Talbot.Īcross the Atlantic, neither the Jam nor the Style Council received much notice from that then-new source of everything musical, MTV. And as the Long Hot Summers anthology makes clear, the best of those songs stand up to any British or American pop music of the 1980s.Ī musical icon in Britain, Weller has never had a broad following overseas in fact, The Style Council’s “My Ever Changing Moods” (1984) remains his only composition to reach the US Top 40. More than any other music of the era, they shaped my social and political as well as my sonic outlook. While I’ll happily listen to anything Weller produces, I will always have a soft spot for those Style Council records.
It seems the perfect time to raise a cappuccino to Weller’s other great band. Fittingly, a new anthology of Style Council recordings, Long Hot Summers, recently reached the UK top ten, and a documentary of the same name will appear on Showtime this month. While this encouraged some listeners to wax nostalgic for Weller’s earliest success with his mod-revival band the Jam, On Sunset has far more in common with the eclectic, soul-inspired records of his Style Council years. In July, when On Sunset debuted at the top of the UK charts, Paul Weller achieved the remarkable feat of having a number one album in five consecutive decades.
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