Our Favourite Shop

Our Favourite Shop
Studio album by The Style Council
Released	9 May 1985
Recorded	December 1984 to March 1985
Genre	Pop rock soul sophisti-pop
Length	49:01
Label	Polydor
Producer	Paul Weller (for Solid Bond Productions) Peter Wilson
The Style Council chronology
Café Bleu (1984) Our Favourite Shop (1985) Home and Abroad (1986)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Robert Christgau	B+[2]
Uncut	[3]

Our Favourite Shop is the second studio album by the English pop rock group the Style Council. It was released on 9 May 1985, on Polydor, and was recorded ten months after the band's debut Café Bleu. It features guest vocalists, including Lenny Henry, Tracie Young, and Alison Limerick. The album contained "Come to Milton Keynes", "The Lodgers", "Boy Who Cried Wolf", and "(When You) Call Me" which were all released as singles, with corresponding music videos. The three singles that were released in the UK all reached the top 40 on the UK charts.

On release, the album was received favourably by the majority of music critics, although opinions have become more negative in subsequent decades. The Style Councils' most commercially successful album, it was an immediate commercial and critical success, and remained at the top of the charts for one week, displacing Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. The album was the Style Council's first and only number 1 solo album in the UK. According to the BPI, the record sold over 100,000 copies, and was certified gold.

The multigenre album incorporates diverse stylistic influences, including Soul, rap, jazz and rock styles. Recording was completed in March 1985. The cover, depicting the band posing inside a shop, was designed by Paul Weller and British artist Simon Halfon.

Contents

The album features fourteen original compositions (seven by Paul Weller, three co-written by Weller and Mick Talbot, and one co-written by Weller with Steve White) in its original British form.

Lyrical targets include racism, excessive consumerism, the effects of self-serving governments, the suicide of one of Weller's friends and what the band saw as an exasperating lack of opposition to the status quo. All of this pessimism is countered with an overarching sense of hope and delight that alternatives do actually exist—if only they can be seen. They also took a more overtly political approach than The Jam in their lyrics, with tracks such as "Walls Come Tumbling Down", "The Lodgers", and "Come To Milton Keynes" being deliberate attacks on 'middle England' and Thatcherite principles prevalent in the 1980s.

Release

The majority of the album's material was released (with different sequencing and packaged with an entirely different cover design) in the USA as Internationalists by Geffen Records (which has been a sister label to Polydor Records, the band's UK label, since 1998, under Universal Music Group).

Most countries (except for the original UK pressing) omitted the track "The Stand Up Comic's Instructions" as it was believed that its satire of racist attitudes would be misunderstood. The guest vocalist was the black British comedian, Lenny Henry imitating comedians such as Bernard Manning and Jim Davidson.^[5] It was included on the UK and CA pressing.

Critical reception

In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau gave the album an B+ and commented that "One reason Paul Weller's rock and roll never convinced non-Brits was his reedy voice, which he has no trouble bending to the needs of the fussy phonographic cabaret he undertook so quixotically and affectedly after retiring the Jam." and also commented that "I'm sure the move has cost him [his] audience, but the new format suits the specifics of his socialism."

Retrospective review

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the album four and a half out of five stars and wrote that "the Style Council's second proper album, was still quite eclectic, but it didn't seem as schizophrenically diverse as Café Bleu." adding that "the record was more cohesive and stronger than the debut."

Track listing

Our Favourite Shop (side 1) - Polydor.

All Songs Written By Paul Weller, except where noted.

Side one

1. "Homebreakers" (Mick Talbot, Paul Weller)
2. "All Gone Away"
3. "Come to Milton Keynes"
4. "Internationalists" (Talbot, Weller)
5. "A Stones Throw Away"
6. "The Stand Up Comic's Instructions" *
7. "Boy Who Cried Wolf"

Side two

8. "A Man of Great Promise"
9. "Down in the Seine"
10. "The Lodgers (or She Was Only a Shopkeeper's Daughter)" (Talbot, Weller)
11. "Luck" (Talbot, Weller)
12. "With Everything to Lose" (Steve White, Weller)
13. "Our Favourite Shop" (Talbot)

Later CD issues included "Shout to the Top!" ("Vision Quest" Version) as a bonus track.

Additional track listing

Personnel

The Style Council

• Paul Weller – vocals; guitars; bass guitar; synth
• Mick Talbot – hammond Organ; keyboards
• Steve White – drums; percussion
• Dee C. Lee – vocals

Guest vocalists

• Lenny Henry – vocals
• Tracie Young – vocals
• Alison Limerick – vocals

Session musicians

• Camille Hinds – bass
• Stewart Prosser – trumpet; flugelhorn
• David DeFries – trumpet; flugelhorn
• Mike Mower – flute; saxophone
• Chris Lawrence – trombone
• Clark Kent – contra bass
• Gary Wallis – percussion
• John Mealing – orchestration; string arrangement
• Anne Stephenson – violin
• Charlie Buchanan – violin
• Jocelyn Pook – viola
• Audrey Riley – cello
• Peter Wilson – keyboard Sequencing
• Patrick Grundy-White – french Horn
• Steve Dawson – trumpet
• Billy Chapman – saxophone
• Kevin Miller – bass
• Helen Turner – piano

Charts

Peak positions

Original release

Certification

References

See also

External links

• Our Favourite Shop at Discogs (list of releases)