540. The Style Council - Café Bleu (1984)
















Track Listing

1. Mick's Blessings
2. Whole Point Of No Return
3. Me Ship Came In
4. Blue Cafe
5. Paris Match
6. My Ever Changing Moods
7. Dropping Bombs On The White House
8. Gospel
9. Strength Of Your Nature
10. You're The Best Thing
11. Here's One That Got Away
12. Headstart For Happiness
13. Council Meetin'

Review

So we move from an album that is maybe too eclectic for its own good to an album that is, on the other hand... too eclectic for its own good. Yes, same problem but very different style from the Replacements.

This album goes along fine with some extremely influential pop-jazz of the kind that would make Swing Out Sister and Everything But The Girl have a career to Rap at the beginning of must have been Side 2 on the vinyl. It fails tremendously at the hip-hop experiment which is continued in the song after the quite bad A Gospel.

The rest of the album does make up for these 2 songs, however with some very well written, extremely well played mix of Jazz, Pop and interventionist song writing. They should have stuck to that however, with its smoky room atmosphere and some of the best singing by Paul Weller and a great guest appearance by Tracey Thorn the vocalist from Everything but the Girl in Paris Match.

Track Highlights

1. Paris Match
2. My Ever Changing Moods
3. The Whole Point Of No Return
4. Here's One That Got Away

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Café Bleu is the official debut album released by the band The Style Council in March 1984, reaching number 2 in the UK charts. It followed the compilation Introducing The Style Council, which was released only in Holland and Japan.

The Paris Match: