Style Council vs The Jam

To accurately convey my opposite feelings on this matter would require far too much time I'm willing to grant that album (or the vast majority of the Style Council's career either). I like to imagine he died peacefully in 1982, but was kept alive by an infusion of overpriced cappucino and bad Stax represses that resulted in the shambling monster which currently exists.

http://store1.yimg.com/I/punk-rock-collector_1693_668450

Both bands have some good singles, but the Jam are a bit too earnest and the Council a bit too sickly for me to like either of them. Jam in winter, Council in summer.

Oooh! Can't resist this one. Dave may not support that theory, BUT I SURE DO!

But, in all candor, they serve entirely different purposes and make entirely different types of music, so it's really apples, oranges and large, frozen seabasses anyway.

Anyway I'm biased and have pretty much everything he's done. The solo stuff circa Wild Wood/ Live Wood is best, i.e. when there was still the soul/jazz influence on what he was doing. Oddly I saw him 2 weeks ago and the set was leaning more heavily on that period. There's a review i did at allirelandmusic.com.

Heliocentric is a pretty good album though it suffers from some a couple of clunky lyrics but you expect a bit of that from Weller. Nice tunes and prettily put together. Heavy Soul is pretty much the opposite. Neither is perfect by any means.

I just wonder if the enw one will be any good. The presence of Noonday Underground bodes well the presence of assorted stereophonics and oasis members does not bode well. He can do rock better than they can so they won't add anything.

confessions of a pop group is not that great

and i gotta say the jam for all the same reasons 8)

andy

etc etc

Fave Style Council songs: Live version of "(When You) Call Me", "My Ever Changing Moods," "You're the Best Thing..."

Fave Paul Weller solo songs: "Wild Wood," "Sunflower."

Are you people serious?! Even Smokey wouldn't want these songs.

The Jam all the way.

(well, not all free jazz but some at least)

The Jam are OK, but I couldn't listen to any of their albums these days perhaps save "The Gift". Weller solo is rubbish. That's been proven under laboratory conditions.

And I also agree with Alex in that The Who crap all over Smokey "Why change it, its already Muzak" Robinson. Except for some of the stuff with the Miracles, which managed to be sensitive without being sappy.

Also, yes - free jazz is the stuff, Julio. :-)

Ahem. It's more a personal thing, but the Style council started around the same time as my first 'proper' band i.e. which I wrote songs for. There was some sort of shared mission, so they will always be closer to me. Having said that, destroy the last two albums*, but that wasn't the question was it?

*released albums. Not the unreleased "Modernism" which I now have and groov to.

I have tried many times to appreciate the Jam. Yes they had some really nice moments here and there, but Style Council's nice moments were better.

Crowning acheivement: TRACEY THORN SINGING "PARIS MATCH"!!! Last time I heard "Headstart For Happiness" & "My Ever Changing Moods" they still sounded as great as they did first time I heard them.

hey jam fans! tell me all you know about PRECIOUS and why it sounds so good!

Then I heard "Long Hot Summer" and I went out on a frantic search for Style Council records today. I used to have the first album...remembered a few other of their songs I liked. Anyway the "Introducing...The Style Council" Mini-LP (ha! remember Mini-LP's?) is making me ridiculously happy at the moment. It is truly almost a perfect record, if they'd just put Tracey Thorne's version of The Paris Match, which I've already discussed above. Can't believe I never owned this before.

Haven't got my mitts on The Jam's The Gift yet, but the only place that had it, it was too expensive. I'll rectify that online, I reckon.

it's pretty much the same song as pigbag's "papa's got a brand new pigbag" (which came a year or two earlier), innit?

Yes! Fucking brilliant. One of my favourite bits of drumming.

I like From The Floorboards Up and Come On Let's Go and woul dlike to know if the rest of the album lives up to these two songs, as it is readily available for a fiver.

It's all highly subjective and association-based, but the A Paris EP and the 7" version of "My Ever Changing Moods" are about as perfect as music gets for me.

Unfortunately the video for "Long Hot Summer" was the subject of much sustained hilarity in our Senior Common Room...not so much for the Mod Goes Brideshead meme but more for "erm, Mick Talbot?"