Greatest Hits [Original recording remastered]

That previous band ceased whilst at their peak and this new career direction evolved into the soulful, political and much more pop venture The Style Council.
Some band's simply run their course before they and their audience grow tired and like the TSC leave us with some wonderful music to reflect on.

83' was a great year for music, the wonderful and charming debut 'Speak Like A Child' soulful and catchy, the political follow up 'Money Go Round' then the summer track of all summer tracks, 'Long Hot Summer' perfect radio music to unwind too then the wonderful 'Solid Bond In Your Heart'.

The lovely 'You're the best thing' came from the diverse and jazzy LP 'Cafe Bleu' and was a summer song for 84' before TSC
peaked at around the 'Our Favourite Shop' period, tracks 'The Lodgers' and the much criticized but in my opinion the comically and charming 'Come to Milton Keynes', which had a wonderful video.

Even the last few years of TSC produced some lovely singles in
'Wanted' , 'How she through it all away' so we are left with a lovely snapshot of the 80's

I suggest alongside purchasing this CD, try the DVD 'The Style Council on film' it just is a nice companion to the collection here and shows how Paul Weller and Mick Talbot let their hair down and just enjoyed themselves.

Unlike 'The Singular Adventures...', which included re-worked or remixed versions of early tracks ("You're the best thing", "Money-go-round", "Long hot summer"), all the tracks on 'Greatest Hits' appear in their original mixes - and in chronological order, even - which alone makes this collection worth getting. Even "Come to Milton Keynes" and "The big boss groove", which were left off the earlier collection, are here - though "Soul deep" is still missing, and "Long hot summer 89" was presumably not included in order to avoid redundancy.

At the same time, 'Greatest Hits' and 'The Singular Adventures...' are sort of funhouse mirror opposites of each other:

1. 'Greatest Hits' includes the 12-inch or LP versions of "Shout to the top!", "The lodgers", and "It didn't matter", which appeared on 'The Singular Adventures...' in their 7-inch versions. Similarly, it includes the 7-inch versions of "Long hot summer", "My ever changing moods", and "Have you ever had it blue", which appeared on 'The Singular Adventures...' in their 12-inch versions.

Then there's the weird case of "You're the best thing". On 'The Singular Adventures...', we got a re-worked/remixed version of the 7-inch, with the extra half-verse in the middle repeated. On 'Greatest Hits', what we get is essentially the 7-inch arrangement of the LP version (minus the brief percussion-only intro), with the extra verse completely absent. I don't recall this being on the 12-inch, so its inclusion here is a bit of a mystery.

2. Like 'The Singular Adventures...' and 'Here's Some That Got Away' before it, 'Greatest Hits' sports a 'Cost Of Loving'/'Jerusalem'-era cover photo. Why Polydor insists on using photos and design motifs (especially that orange!) associated with the period widely considered to be the band's nadir on what are otherwise supposed to be "best of" collections is still baffling.

That said, 'Greatest Hits' is still a welcome addition to anyone's Style Council collection, and a vast improvement on the three other compilations released since 'Here's Some That Got Away'. The tracks here don't seem to suffer (or suffer as much) from the over-compression that mars the rest of the Style Council remaster series (you'd think that this would have been addressed in the two years since the release of the box set); and the versions of "Money-go-round", "You're the best thing", "The lodgers", and "Have you ever had it blue" have not been available on CD until now; and the liner notes are probably the best I've seen on a TSC compilation. A few Cappucino Kid sleevenotes would have been nice, though...