A youtube clip of "In the City", live, introduced by Tony Wilson.

And my thought was: doesn't get any better than that. After you've climbed Everest, every other mountain is...smaller.

TSC were good - better than your average band. But not The Jam. I have had pitched arguments about this fact (OOAA)

I'm a massive Weller fan, but if I'm pushed to pick an era it will be 83-85, the various singles during those years - and the b-sides - and the first two albums (3 if you count Introducing). I was 14 in 1983, and already obsessed with music, but I hadn't yet gotten really obsessed with a band in that 'teenage' way. TSC and Weller's Respond label became my obsession that year.

The first four singles feature my four favourite TSC moments, Party Chambers, Headstart For Happiness, Paris Match and It Just Came To Pieces are not just my favourite TSC songs, but also perfect examples of Weller's B-side quality control.

Although I would say that my very favourite TSC period is the later period, Cost Of Lovings onwards. This has been ridiculed in the past as his faux modern soul phase (heavily influenced by DC Lee) I would beg to differ and suggest there is nothing faux about it at all and songs such as It Didn't Matter and Wanted stand up to a lot of the modern soul being released at the time.

... and their singles album is one of my most-played, though to be honest I was never a great fan of the albums proper. I remain convinced that people's love for The Jam has stood in the way of Weller getting the artistic kudos he deserves for breaking up the most popular band in the UK to "follow his muse" and try something different.

write their logo on my jotters at school! I think I was like you. I was aware of The Jam and liked them, but just when I got to the age when I wanted to go out and buy lots of records they split up.
I was primed for TSC and even joined their fan club for £3.50. Bought other Respond Records stuff like The Questions and Tracie, who I fell in love with. The Elvis Costello penned I Love You When You Sleep is a minor classic. ("Even a hard man or a creep/can look pretty good when he's asleep").
Speak Like A Child was so exciting to me back then. I still love it, and My Ever Changing Moods. I bought every 7 inch up to Life At A Top People's Health Farm and I can remember being surprised that the later records weren't quite as good as that 83-85 period. They seemed a bit weedy at Live Aid and having Lenny Henry on OFS was a bit of a mistake. It was great while they lasted though and I wish I'd been old enough to see them live. They're quite a unique act I think - insofar as you've got a superstar sharing the limelight with Mick and DC Lee like a cooler version of Wham! in some ways. Certainly they made a lot of great recordings beyond the strong singles. Man Of Great Promise and The Boy Who Cried Wolf being just two.

but this is a tune...

I've lost count of the amount of times during conversations at parties about music where I've had to look shocked and say 'you've never heard of The Style Council?????'.

I was a Jam fan first but I went with Weller when The Style Council started out and wasn't disappointed. The class still shone through. Yes, sometimes the music was not mixed as well as it could've been and there were a couple of moments through the '80s where I thought 'I don't get it'. But through it all the music was always 100% better than most stuff other people were pumping out.

I think I'm one of the minority (hello art vanderlay :) ) because my favourite album is 'The Cost Of Loving' because it sounds like one complete album, cohesive. The other albums always felt like a collection of (great) songs.

Such was the talent of Weller and his songwriting that the Council B-sides were nearly always equal to the A-side. My username here (hi, I just joined) is my favourite Council song which was the B-side to 'Walls Come Tumbling Down'.

I see Weller's debut solo album as the last Style Council album because it sounds in part like a follow up to 'The Cost Of Loving'. I think Weller lost where he was going after 'The Cost Of Loving', expecting the album to be a smash all around and then for 'Confessions' he was a little bit lost (still a great album, I'm not knocking it) and 'Modernism: A New Decade' is an album rooted in it's era. It's not relevant or fresh sounding today but if it had been released back in 1989 things might've been different.

You can probably guess by now I'm a massive Weller fan and knowledgeable on it. I love a wide variety of music from many different eras but any time I pick my acoustic up while watching TV I'll always find myself absent-mindedly strumming away on a Weller tune.

... Tracey was the only one that mattered

Loved the Style Council. Got front row tickets on the first full tour (may even have been the first date thereof) at Oxford Apollo (cf New Theatre etc). I was 16 or so...

Tracy supported. Was endearingly stubborn in the face of much "lively banter". We sang along and revelled in our proximity to the recent chart troubler.

Enter TSC. Several million mods/skins surge forward. 2 or 3 unremembered (bar the battering) songs later, gig is watched from refuge of balcony.

Good, mind.