The Style Council – Our Favourite Shop
(Polydor Records 1985 TSCLP2)
Matrix No’s: A1/B4 – UK Pressing
Gatefold Sleeve in Nr MINT- condition
– some slight wear to edges
Inner Sleeve in Nr MINT condition
Photo Insert in Nr MINT condition
Vinyl in Nr MINT condition
(there are some surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality)
The Style Council were an English band formed in 1983 by Paul Weller, the former singer, songwriter, and guitarist with the punk rock/new wave/mod revival band The Jam, and keyboardist Mick Talbot, previously a member of Dexys Midnight Runners, The Bureau and The Merton Parkas. The band enabled Weller to take a more soulful direction with his music.
The permanent line-up grew to include drummer Steve White and Weller’s then-wife, vocalist Dee C. Lee. Other artists such as Tracie Young, Tracey Thorn (Everything but the Girl), and drummer/percussionist Steve Sidelnyk (Madonna, SEAL, Richard Ashcroft ) also performed and collaborated with the group. As with Weller’s previous band, most of the London-based group’s hits were in their homeland, where they scored seven Top 10 hits. The band also had hit singles and albums in Australia and New Zealand during the 1980s.
Our Favourite Shop is the second album from the band The Style Council. The majority of the album’s material was released (with different sequencing and packaged with an entirely different cover design) in the USA as Internationalists by Geffen Records (which has been a sister label to Polydor Records, the band’s UK label, since 1998, under Universal Music Group).
Lyrical targets include racism, excessive consumerism, the effects of self-serving governments, the suicide of one of Weller’s friends and what the band saw as an exasperating lack of opposition to the status quo. All of this pessimism is countered with an overarching sense of hope and delight that alternatives do actually exist—if only they can be seen. The album contained the Top 10 singles “Shout to the Top!”, which reached #7 in the UK, and “Walls Come Tumbling Down!”, which reached #6 in the UK. The contained musical styles are far-ranging; Soul, rap, jazz and rock stylings all occur on the album.
Paul Weller said of the album in 2006 “I had a total belief in The Style Council. I was obsessed in the early years. I lived and breathed it all. I meant every word, and felt every action. Our Favourite Shop was its culmination.”
The US version titled “Internationalists” was also available as a Columbia Record & Tape House selection for the issue year 1985.
Track listing
Original UK tracklisting
- All Songs Written By Paul Weller, except where noted.
- “Homebreakers” (Mick Talbot, Paul Weller)
- “All Gone Away”
- “Come to Milton Keynes”
- “Internationalists” (Talbot, Weller)
- “A Stones Throw Away”
- “The Stand Up Comic’s Instructions” *
- “Boy Who Cried Wolf”
- “A Man of Great Promise”
- “Down in the Seine”
- “The Lodgers (or She Was Only a Shopkeeper’s Daughter)” (Talbot, Weller)
- “Luck” (Talbot, Weller)
- “With Everything to Lose” (Steve White, Weller)
- “Our Favourite Shop” (Talbot)
- “Walls Come Tumbling Down”
Personnel
- Paul Weller – Vocals/Guitars/Bass Guitar/Synth
- Mick Talbot – Hammond Organ/Keyboards
- Steve White – Drums/Percussion
- Dee C. Lee – Vocals
- Lenny Henry – Vocals
- Tracie Young – Vocals
- Camelle Hinds – Bass
- Stewart Prosser – Trumpet/Flugel Horn
- David Defries – Trumpet/Flugel Horn
- Mike Mower – Flute/Saxophone
- Chris Lawrence – Trombone
- Clark Kent – Contra Bass
- Gary Wallis – Percussion
- John Mealing – Orchestration/String arrangement
- Anne Stephenson – Violin
- Charlie Buchanan – Violin
- Jocelyn Pook – Viola
- Audrey Riley – Cello
- Peter Wilson – Keyboard Sequencing
- Patrick Grundy-White – French Horn
- Steve Dawson – Trumpet
- Billy Chapman – Saxophone
- Kevin Miller – Bass
- Helen Turner – Piano
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