Our Favourite Shop

Our Favourite Shop (released as Internationalists in the United States) is the second studio album by English band the Style Council. Recorded ten months after the band's debut, Café Bleu, it was released on 8 June 1985 on Polydor. It features guest vocalists including Lenny Henry, Tracie Young, and Dee C Lee. The album includes "Come to Milton Keynes", "The Lodgers", "Boy Who Cried Wolf", and "Walls Come Tumbling Down!", which were all released as singles (with corresponding music videos). The three singles released in the UK all reached the top 40 on the UK charts. The track listing was reconfigured for the U.S. release.

The Style Council's 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 only number one 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 (eight by Paul Weller, four co-written by Weller and Mick Talbot, and one co-written by Weller with Steve White), with one instrumental from Talbot, 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. "A Man of Great Promise" was Weller's eulogy to his school friend and early Jam member - Dave Waller - who had died from a heroin overdose in August 1982.

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).

Included on the UK, US, and Canadian pressings, most countries omitted the track "The Stand Up Comic's Instructions" as it was believed that its ironic 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.

Critical reception
While receiving some mixed reviews on its release in 1985, it was widely considered to be the band's best work by contemporary critics.

In his "Consumer Guide" column for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote: "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. I'm sure the move has cost him audience, but the new format suits the specifics of his socialism."

Retrospectively, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that Our Favourite Shop "was still quite eclectic, but it didn't seem as schizophrenically diverse as Café Bleu", praising it as a "more cohesive and stronger" album.

Track listing
All songs written by Paul Weller, except where noted.

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; vocals (track 1)
 * 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