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The full title of this, their last Top 20 hit, is 'Wanted (Or Waiter, There's Some Soup In My Flies)'. Ahem. That's almost as bad as calling your band The Style Council.
Perhaps it's unfortunate that TSC (as fans call them) are destined to be viewed largely through the prism of what Paul Weller did either side of them. There's definitely something to be said for his having the bravery to abandon The Jam at the peak of their success and try to do something fresh. And there were some very good singles in the early days. By this point, however, they were dropping off the radar: indeed, the single before this, 'Waiting' was Weller's first ever to miss the UK Top 40, which was presumably the reason for rushing out this non-album 45 (the B-side was the title track from their album The Cost Of Loving). It's tempting to perceive the synth-heavy production as a precursor to their experiments with house music, but it does sound rather more like an effort to makes something that fits in with the idea of a hit in 1987, and some elements (the slap bass and Mick Talbot's repeated keyboard glissandi) just sound impossibly naff today. The effect is to smother any breezy charm that the rather slight song might have had, hence a record that was a hit in its day but seems forgotten now - I think I'd only heard it once before it cropped up here, and it's conspicuously absent from the best-of album I have.
Also appearing on: Now 3, 4, 5, 14
Available on: Greatest Hits
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