Our Favourite Shop/Internationalists (1985)

All of the things I liked about the Style Council in Cafe Bleu - synthy basslines, soulful singing from Paul Weller and Dee C Lee, and the occassional strange interlude from Mick, or polemical rapping - it's all here again. And I realize how confused I have been through the years because of the way the record label wanted to rename TSC albums for US release. The optimism levels here are very high. "Luck" is a great pick me up, reminiscent of "My Ever Changing Moods".

You caught me feeling all was useless
And left me feeling ten feet high

Our Favourite Shop was my favourite album when I listened to the Style Council years ago. Not sure if it still is. "A Stone's Throw Away" is a song that has stuck with me through the years... it ties early Jam songs like "In The City" with "Eton Rifles" and "Smithers-Jones". Trust the workers, don't trust the bastards in power, and so forth. Paul does sound incredibly sincere when he talks about what's happening a stone's throw away "in Chile, in Poland, in Johannesburg, South Yorkshire. A reminder, looking back, that this was the same period of apparent self- and global-awareness and class consciousness that brought us Live Aid.

Walls Come Tumbling Down at Live Aid - Paul sounds great here.

Songs like the "Stand Up Comics Instructions" are great. In a way, this reminds me of the spoken word stuff Mark Kozelek has been doing in the last few years. There's a polemic basis, and it's catchy, but the real star of the show in this case are Steve White's drums, which are fantastic. It's too bad this track was pulled from some releases under the belief that the blatant anti-racism might be misinterpretted because some people are unable to understand

Not a lot of videos from this period, but "Shout to the Top" is very good. Not sure I love Mick playing the piano standing up, but I love Steve White's grip"

satire. It's too bad. There are some legitimately poor choices made, such as Paul scatting along with the guitars on "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", and his french in "Down in the Seine" is problematic, but overall, I still love this album. I did not appreciate the drums enough.