SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO

25. The Style Council :  Sure is sure, We'll be gone

PART 1

ALMOST EVERY black Harrington or denim jacket I gawped at was emblazoned with a dreary, monochrome Jam button badge.

I hated them. Apart from The Bitterest Pill, their music still leaves me entirely cold. Yet, three months before they broke up, Paul Weller appeared in Smash Hits alongside Paul McCartney. Photographed by Linda McCartney, Weller was perfecting a look I’d been badly attempting all year. From the very start, I loved The Style Council, especially because so many folks hated them.

The ultimate test of that love wasn't just buying A Cost of Loving, it was genuinely loving it. I vividly remember skipping college, hitting a rare win on the fruit machines, and striding straight into HMV instead of walking home broke. I still had to walk, but this time I had the LP tucked under my arm, buzzing with anticipation. While Waiting is the undeniable standout, the entire album sounded completely alien to my collection. Back then, I was mostly buying seven-inch singles and the occasional LP, completely oblivious to the crisp US production teams that had inspired them. 

I’ve had (When You) Call Me on endless repeat. It’s a burst of autumn sunshine, anchoring the Come to Milton Keynes EP, and it’s as brilliant as the title track is grating (think proto-Blur at their most annoying). While the club mixes make that EP a classic, completists should hunt down Boy Who Cried Wolf EP instead. Cheers Basso! It swaps the title track for a much better opener and delivers a far more rewarding listen. 

Their retro flair, from Paolo Hewitt's Loog Oldham nods in the sleeve notes to the soulful backing vocals and stylised artwork, struck a deep chord with me. While Long Hot Summer sound-tracked the final days of my childhood, the band truly clicked during the turbulence of my adolescence. As my politics shifted left, Weller’s lyrics transcended the music, shaping socialist principles that have only hardened with age. Our Favourite Shop was a coherent masterpiece that subtly turned me against my parents; Thatcherism, the wedge that divided society,  fractured the harmony in our own home. 

PART 2

HAD ADOLESCENCE been kinder, I’d have been a dedicated follower of fashion. Instead, my youth was a masterclass in strategic hair-combing to camouflage boils, punctuated by secret pilgrimages to a compost heap where my discarded Rucanor bag lay stuffed with Knave magazines. The Style Council felt entirely too sophisticated for my world, with their expensive clothes and polished instruments, yet their timing was impeccable. They remain a paradox to me: I was no fan of Paul Weller, yet their records spoke directly to me.

Plucked from the Woolworths bargain bins, their experimental masterpiece Confessions of a Pop Group has slowly evolved into an all-time favourite. Its pathos missed me in 1987, a time when Thatcher’s re-election left me numb and my Labour sympathies unexpressed. Yet, decades later, the album's sonic risks and the earnest, time-softened charm of the Red Wedge era reveal a profound integrity that today’s music desperately lacks.  

While Weller’s powerhouse vocals single-handedly anchor How She Threw It All Away, the entire LP possesses a profound, overlooked depth. Following the lukewarm reception of The Cost of Loving, a jittery Polydor famously shelved the brilliant Modernism: A New Decade, instantly cementing it as a lost holy grail. When a rare copy finally surfaced at Vinyl Exchange for £60, I spent an age wearing down the shop's legendary, droopy-eyed diamond, Marc, to let me cash in my credit note. He eventually relented, and it has since claimed a permanent spot among my absolute favourite albums.

It’s a rare, unskippable front-to-back record that reaches its zenith with Sure is Sure, matching the authenticity of Stateside soulful house while effortlessly predating Primal Scream’s electronic pivots. Getting dropped at the absolute apex of their powers must have stung bitterly. And while Joe Smooth’s remix of Promised Land lent them some bona fide club kudos, the catalogue's true house peak belongs to Fire Island’s blistering cover of Shout to the Top, set ablaze by Loleatta Holloway’s soaring vocals. Once an acquired taste, they’ve finally aged into the ultimate band to name-drop.

Looking back, it wasn’t just the soulful landscape; it was about finding an identity that felt entirely my own, separate from the sea of black Harrington jackets and predictable button badges. While everyone else was looking backward, Weller’s second act forced me to look forward, shaping not just my record collection, but my politics and my worldview. Decades later, those sleek European aesthetics and sharp socialist anthems still resonate, a reminder of the moment a band stopped being just a soundtrack and started being a blueprint for who I wanted to become.

  

 

BEATS OF LOVE 

186. Time and Space LP by Shrinkwrap 

ROBERTO GAVE me a casual heads-up about Moon Safari, and I made it my entire personality. 

I never scored the elusive promo cassette, but hearing it successfully blew my mind to pieces. Loved the spacey, house-adjacent vibes of their early stuff, but I didn't think they had this kind of womb-level masterpiece in them. When they packed out the Ritz just a year later, I was genuinely offended by how popular my private musical obsession had become.

Now, history is repeating itself. Delia kindly sent over the files for Shrinkwrap’s debut long player, and it has delivered the same shock to my system. They’ve taken the down tempo dub-house-disco of their earlier work and let it marinate in proper studio time, fuelled by the burgeoning scene sprawling all around them. The result is a double album that finally gives them the runway to flex their full potential. 

The opening tracks deliver head music of the highest calibre. Beautiful Thing is an absolute triumph; the vocal floats atop a warm, intoxicating tapestry of sound, weaving through the instrumentation with effortless brilliance. It leaves a visual afterglow reminiscent of a sun-drenched afternoon, just before the trumpet sweeps in to clear the air. The album then accelerates into a cerebral funk, driven by arrangements that are deeply sophisticated yet entirely accessible. The undisputed centrepieces, 54 Blues Pt. 1 and 2, offer a wide-screen cinematic experience, evoking the rain-soaked, melancholic film classics of the 1970s. Echoes of this era haunt the entire record, especially the dizzying, dramatic interplay between strings and strumming.

Even the meditative, spoken-word tracks Calm Your Mind and Time and Space, styles popularised during the ambient house era, flow seamlessly without feeling like awkward audiobook intermissions. It is a shared vision brought to life, leaving me with the metaphorical sensation of sand between my toes. 

Honestly? I don't want to know how they did it. Keep the wizardry behind the curtain and let me obsess in peace. Air gave me my first womb-level masterpiece; Shrinkwrap just gave me my next.

https://deliarecordings.bandcamp.com/merch

 BEATS OF LOVE 

185. I'm Free by The Who

MY COMEDY career died the day I tried to live-stream my brain. 

I used to get laughs from accidental, blurted out thoughts. But then I watched Peep Show, got arrogant, and started over sharing on purpose. Turns out my "unfiltered genius" was actually just tedious. The town of Shaw has only ever produced two real geniuses: ET and Rob.

ET played bass for the unsung heroes of the local scene, The Rainkings and One Summer. Conventional wisdom says bass players should be dull, but he breaks the mould; a genuine, old-school rock and roll character who nearly steered Bingo Jesus to mainstream success. There is zero pretense to him either. Whether he is enjoying a liquid lunch or cranking the stereo at 3:00 am, he doesn't try to be eccentric. He just does strange as a matter of course. He’s got a massive heart, too; I once watched him slip a twenty-pound note into the palm of an old schoolmate down on his luck. Not every town gets a local legend like that.

Then there is Rob, a complex enigma. He read literature at Keble College, Oxford, before somehow winding up in the same warehouse where I worked. I was instantly drawn to him the day I saw him at his desk, swirling spilled coffee with his finger, wearing a perfectly ambivalent smile. His sole act of kindness toward me was proofreading my fanzine submissions, a task he dispatched in minutes, gracefully erasing my endless errors. We used to play golf together until he became significantly better than me, at which point he abruptly quit the game and took up running. He still runs today, leaning heavily forward with his mouth agape, looking like a man who has just punished his body for twenty miles.

Now, the two of us sit in the same care home on Sundays. Half-smiling, half-drowning, we watch our loved ones slowly fade away, undoubtedly harbouring quiet fears about our own futures. I still want to ask him to write a book. I am certain it would be nothing short of brilliant.

Looking back, my biggest mistake wasn't trying to live-stream my brain; it was believing that brilliance had to be performed. True genius, like ET’s effortless rock and roll heart or Rob’s sharp, enigmatic mind, doesn’t need a digital stage or an intentional spotlight. It simply exists in the quiet, unscripted moments of life.

BEATS OF LOVE 

184. Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance) (remix) by M|A|R|R|S

IN STILL In a Dream, Simon Reynolds trades his signature fanboy awe for a formulaic blueprint, resulting in a distinct comedown. By recycling old Melody Maker pieces, he inadvertently unmasks these feedback-drenched slackers as conventional, ego-driven rock stars. Ironically, while critiquing his own history with critical theory, his clinical tone reduces a sonic revolution to mere talking points. 

Yet, despite this demystification, Reynolds’ initial joy of discovery still flashes through. Many of these acts embody the DIY spirit while simultaneously possessing the transferable skills required for mainstream success, neatly balancing industry conformity with boundary-pushing experimentation. 

Ultimately, the book’s saving grace is its chapter on A.R. Kane, a forgotten yet deeply intriguing band. Though their conceptual limits required careful harnessing, the results consistently shattered expectations. They broke the mould, emerging as the product of a conflicting era torn between darker sixties obsessions and the Second Summer of Love and its afterglow.

Reynolds’ insights sent me spinning this neglected Colourbox collab B-side. He nailed the description: a pioneering clash of lovers rock and kaleidoscopic, Hendrix-esque guitar. Buy the record before the book.

BEATS OF LOVE

183. Just An Illusion (The 1989 Remix) by Imagination 

THE ONLY person I properly envied was Gary Blackwood. The young kid who drummed along to Kings of the Wild Frontier with Adam and the Ants on Jim'll Fix It. 

I was so green; I went upstairs and signed personal messages to myself from Adam on all my posters. This proved cathartic until my cousin Julia visited from Essex and asked about the juvenile signatures. I mumbled a very tall tale about meeting him in person while stuttering and blushing for England. 

I topped this a few years later. Ann Caroll, the kind of girl whose entrance made the room stop acting normal, came over to our group with some mistletoe at a school Christmas party. Having spent the preceding twelve months confined to my room watching Channel 4 with a greyhound brace set, all I could do when it was my turn was blush badly, freezing in terror and shutting tight both my eyes and mouth. The humiliation was instant. I fled for home to the comfort of my homework, with taunts reverberating around my head throughout the festive season.

Fast forward eighteen months and I'm trying to impress my soon to be best mate. I could've done that by telling him I'd amassed a fair few records, Subbuteo teams, a decent half set of golf clubs, and a six-foot snooker table since we last saw each other; but I had to add an imaginary girlfriend to that list. Not just any imaginary girlfriend, but Ann Caroll, no less. I soon found out that despite not going to the same school, news travels fast. A double humiliation.

You'd have thought I'd learn, but over a decade later Fiona is reciting her poem about me. The poem mentioned the scars on my wrists being like the crossings of a Bakewell tart. Without being a critic, I knew this was the emotional apex of her poem so I just sheepishly held out my wrists, since people were understandably curious. I quite liked this sudden depth to my character, but the simple truth is there's a distinctive shallowness to it. When I was eight, I watched Superman, then after, in imitation, flew out of the glass porch at lightning speed, wrists first before screaming A & E down. 

My mother thought I had an over-active imagination and my father thought I was just tapped in the head. I never settled that argument. I do know scars can be both physical and metaphorical. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

182. You Retreat in Time and Space by Boards of Canada

THE PRECARIOUS labour market began with Thatcher, but Blair embedded it, importing US-style agency work and creating a two-tier economy: security for those already settled, instability for the folk who came after.

Blair then embraced the freedom of movement and cheap labour for business. Adopting the right to settle rather than merely the right to work, a policy choice that encouraged far greater numbers of European migrants to put down roots. Meanwhile, successive governments bombed across the Middle East then expressed surprise at the refugee flows the right was already weaponising.

Until the economic crash one might have forgiven folk their anger; after it, they voted for the very austerity that bled them dry. Austerity was a supposed temporary measure that got a minority extremely wealthy at their expense. It is little wonder that Brexit, the Covid contracts, the Russian energy windfall, and Truss's budget all followed in sequence, each one another extraction by the same minority that has become addicted to exploiting public credulity. Farage's method is simpler: amplify the grievance, then quietly hold the door ajar for the robbers. 

Reform will need three full terms before it can govern the way it wants. The way Trump can at the moment. It will invoke the threat of civil unrest to intimidate both the courts and the Lords into compliance. Before the courts and the Lords finally yield, enough folk will concede that they've fallen for bite-size misinformation on social media and voted, repeatedly and badly, for a generation. 

If only Labour had the sense to ban voters from social media and not children.

BEATS OF LOVE 

181. Failure is Always An Option: Glorious Adventures on the Beta Band Front Line and Other Tales by Steve Mason

By 1997 I was thoroughly jaded with clubbing, until the Beta Band's Champion Versions EP rewound me all the way back to the first time I heard Loaded. 

I was lucky to catch them live early at the Roadhouse and Uni so witnessed the idiosyncrasy and humour that made them so special up close. I travelled far and wide to fall under their spell of redemptive eclecticism. Getting red-eyed with them at the South bar after their farewell performance in Manchester. I knew they were going to be missed, especially by me, as I was already feeling old by then. 

His best music is fragmented, unselfconsciously so, and the same is true of his best writing. Seeping out in candid tales haphazardly revealing a droll humour. Tales that thankfully encompass more than the Beta Band years. He downplays his own bravery by judging past decisions through a present-day lens, as if the risks he took were obvious rather than radical. His argument that 'selling out' is an obsolete concept stings a little. Quietly dismantling the idealism that made me feel so old by 2004.

He's especially hard on himself when letting us into the drifts of his mind. It's a little too near home but his brilliant gift for story telling makes even the most depressing episodes highly entertaining. The peaks and troughs of his life don't come at you in linear and obvious ways either, instead springing out of the pages in a surprising manner. 

Reading this does what only the best music writing can: it rewinds the music, making it sound fresh again.