Comment on This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to ’1980s Rebel Soul’ by Brian Hanley

Great post Sam.
I think John O’Neill claims he wanted ‘It’s gonna happen’ to be about H-Block, and to reference hunger strikers of the past, but the rest of the lads weren’t into it and they wrote the main verses, which have nothing to do with anything really.
I think sometimes the best political music is when the musicians themselves come to it organically, rather than start a band as a political project. If you look at Paul Weller for instance, he was a Tory in 1977 (no matter what he claims now) and was pretty apolitical/cynical up to 1979 (not saying that some of The Jam’s music up to then wasn’t great – it was) – on Setting Sons there’s some really sharply observed stuff, Sound Affects is more political (that brass section appears on Boy About Town), then The Gift as you say more left-wing still. But the point is, if the songs were shit would anyone care?
By 1984-85 Weller was calling for Tories to be shot (in the pages of Smash Hits no less) and I think The Style Council were bringing out some really good stuff by then too.
Yes, Tracy Thorn of ETBTG sang on the first Style Council album and there was some other collaborations as well.