The Style Council: Our Favourite Shop (Polydor)
Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 25 May 1985
EVEN NOW, it's difficult to form a total picture of Paul Weller (the man, the music, the intention). The main thrust of My Favourite Shop is stridently anti-Tory, but there's a handful of awkward love songs too plus a kind of Euroballad where Weller sings in French. Many of the songs are in the familiar lounge-funk format, and their real message only emerges with close scrutiny of the lyric sheet.
Packaging is deluxe, presumably to the point of mockery, with Mick 'n' Paul getting the matinee-idol close-up on the inner sleeve, and Weller apparently parodying Rupert Everett on the front. The Montreux Pop Festival is another country, eh? Why, then, is there a merchandising slip enclosed for a Style Council book called Internationalists? Or is this a wind-up?
These false trails aside, the music is slicker and more confident than ever, full of clever and unexpected arrangements and some novel instrumentation. The orchestra in 'Come To Milton Keynes', for instance, is pure Radio 2, bursting with jollity as Weller sings "May I slash my wrists tonight/On this fine Conservative night tonight". Welter's at his angry best here, unleashing a savage irony as new as it's effective — "We used to chase dreams now we chase the dragon/Mine is the semi with the Union Jack on". Perfect for pricking the nauseating Milton Keynes balloon commercial.
'Homebreakers', the opener, is the strongest song here, a brooding survey of economic blight and Tory callousness. It slinks along over a wiry guitar figure, with Talbot adding sullen keyboards behind crisp brass. D.C. Lee helps Talbot out on vocals, and Weller even permits himself a well-judged blues guitar solo.
Drummer Steve White seems to be nearly the full-time third Councillor, and his playing is exemplary throughout. He hustles urgently through the funk-with-horns of 'Internationalists', and falls in behind a cameo vocal by Lenny Henry on 'The Stand Up Comic's Instructions' with a mass of incidental detail. Henry's impression of a sexist/racist clubland comic is assured enough to prevent the song from collapsing into a catalogue of worthiness.
Less successful is 'The Lodgers (or She Was Only A Shopkeeper's Daughter)', a formulaic exercise in major sevenths, the soul-funk standby chord. The lyric's about Thatcher and the ruling class, of course. Weller's efforts to lighten the political load with the occasional love song aren't too impressive, either. 'Down In The Seine' includes both an accordion and Weller singing in French. The cumulative effect resembles a Nimble advertisement. And 'Luck', despite a well-oiled performance by the musicians, contains some awful lines I'll spare you here.
But, even if 'Walls Come Tumbling Down' does sound like Chas & Dave, there's still the sparkling tunefulness of 'A Man Of Great Promise' (12-string guitar, even), or the mocking Latin swivel of 'With Everything To Lose'.
If you overlook the packaging games, Our Favourite Shop is worth spending some time with. Maybe the real Paul Weller will never stand up, but he's in here somewhere.
© Adam Sweeting, 1985