The Style Council To Release New Career-Spanning Anthology, ‘Long Hot Summers’

The Style Council are set to release a new, career-spanning anthology set, Long Hot Summers, through Polydor/UMC on October 30.

The long-awaited and eagerly anticipated definitive career anthology teaming with all the greatest hits is named with a nod to the band’s biggest hit and Long Hot Summers is endorsed and co-compiled by Paul Weller himself.

As well as the huge hit “Long Hot Summer”, the album also includes the band’s sterling debut top 5 single “Speak Like A Child” as well as other signature hits such as the languid “You’re The Best Thing”, “Ever Changing Moods” and dance floor filler “Shout To The Top”. The release also ties in with a new Sky Arts documentary about the band, also out on October 30, featuring interviews with all key members, fans and collaborators.

Long Hot Summers also includes two unreleased tracks – an intriguing demo of the top 5 single “My Ever Changing Moods” with strings, and the extended, 5-minute plus version of “Dropping Bombs On The Whitehouse”. Of course, it also Includes all the band’s classic singles –12 top-20 hits -including the debut single “Speak Like A Child” and “Long Hot Summer”. The album also features key album tracks and fans’ favourites such as “Headstart For Happiness”. Scroll the page down for full tracklisting and format details.

Long Hot Summers features rare photos, an introduction by Paul Weller, a new essay by Lois Wilson, and sleeve-notes from ‘super-fan’, actor Martin Freeman. The album was remastered at Abbey Road Studios.

When Paul Weller announced The Style Council’s arrival in March 1983, he’d come a very long way. In fact, at the age of just 24, he was already a musical veteran with six albums and nine Top 10 singles under his belt with The Jam. As their leader he had become a deity-like figure and for his fans, The Jam’s split was unimaginable.

But creatively restless and of inquisitive mind, Weller jettisoned them at their height to form a collective with an eventual core line-up of Weller with Mick Talbot, Dee C Lee and Steve White.

In a quest for new sounds, the group travelled to realms previously unchartered for a pop group incorporating musical influences as wide ranging as Blue Note jazz and Chicago soul, Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, Chicago House and Jacques Brel.

At the same time, as battle lines were drawn in a decade under Margaret Thatcher culminating in the miner’s strike of 1984-85, Weller’s lyrics spoke with the language of the activist and his state of the nation addresses were both fierce and eloquent. Over four albums and 17 singles, The Style Council made a stand and became the standard bearers of progressive soulful pop and social comment.

As well as digitally, the album will be available on double CD and triple album vinyl: limited editions of both vinyl formats: black vinyl and a highly covetable colored vinyl version. All format details and track listings below.

Long Hot Summers is out on October 30. Scroll down to read the full track listing and pre-order it here.

Long Hot Summers: 2CD set:

Disc One:
“Headstart for Happiness”
“Long Hot Summer”
“My Ever-Changing Moods”
“Walls Come Tumbling Down!”
“Party Chambers”
“Wanted (or Waiter, There’s…)”
“Shout to the Top!”
“It Just Came to Pieces in My Hands”
“Come to Milton Keynes”
“Why I Went Missing”
“Waiting”
“Ghosts Of Dachau”
“Down in the Seine”
“The Paris Match”
“Boy Who Cried Wolf”
“Life at a Top People’s Health Farm”
“Homebreakers”
“Dropping Bombs On The Whitehouse” (Extended version)

Disc Two:
“Speak Like a Child”
“The Lodgers (Or She Was Only…)”
“Money Go Round”
“You’re the Best Thing”
“How She Threw It All Away”
“A Man of Great Promise”
“The Piccadilly Trail”
“A Solid Bond in Your Heart”
“All Gone Away”
“Sweet Loving Ways”
“Promised Land”
“Have You Ever Had It Blue”
“It Didn’t Matter”
“Spin’ Drifting”
“Here’s One That Got Away”
“A Woman’s Song”
“Changing of the Guard”
“My Ever-Changing Moods (Demo)”
“Shout To The Top (Instrumental)”