In 1988 the Style Council released their cover of Joe Smooth's 'Promised Land'. It was the last roll dice for Weller's modernism really. Depending on your view either a homage to or bandwagon jumping on the latest black American sound being championed by hip British kids. The links to Philly soul and the lyrics calling the listener to emancipation [and nod to Martin Luther King's last speech]
There's no hiding it, it's a very weak version, include the noticeably flat vocals. Weller needs some grist-in-the-mill to perform, and I suspect he didn't really 'get' total euphoria, in idea or practice. It's also not as good as the neo-disco of 'Shout to the Top'.
Worse, it actually earned Weller plenty of opprobrium from house fans. The Style Council released their version around at the same time as Joe Smooth pushed a proper single version of his track. The Council charted higher (no.27 to no.56). This seems to have created a legend that Weller denied Smooth a hit single. Sample Youtube comment: "blatent rip off of joe smooth, totaly ruined his chances of gettin to number one buy shitly covering it".
