Sock Free Hideaway

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.