Classic Pop Issue 101 (February 2026) The Style Council

Classic Pop Issue 101 (February 2026) The Style Council

Classic Pop issue 101 is on sale now and for our first issue of 2026, we meet The Style Council as Café Bleu gets the deluxe boxset treatment. The band tell us about their storied career, from that genre-skipping debut through to their underrated swansong Modernism: A New Decade, which found them exploring house music.

Elsewhere this month, Classic Pop catches up with Squeeze to hear the intriguing genesis story behind their forthcoming album Trixies, which finds Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook revisiting unreleased songs they wrote as teenagers.

We also meet Rick Astley as he prepares to set off on his Reflection arena tour and, ahead of his own Doin’ Fine Encore tour, Rick’s Stock Aitken Waterman labelmate Jason Donovan looks back on his pop past.

Also Inside…

We also gaze into CP’s crystal ball to preview music highlights across the next 12 months from our favourite artists in our Year Ahead: 2026 feature.

Meanwhile, we revisit Blondie’s Eat To The Beat for our latest classic album piece and shine a light on Wally Badarou’s Echoes. We also take a deep dive into Simply Red’s complete back catalogue and count down our Top 20 favourite 80s power ballads.

In our packed reviews pages we give our verdict on new album releases including Mika, Lily Allen, Agnes, De La Soul and Blue plus there’s a comprehensive reissues section featuring The Power Station, Talk Talk, Ian Dury, The Style Council, T.Rex, Roxette, Freddie Mercury, Atomic Kitten and more. In our live reviews section, we check out shows by Gary Numan, Howard Jones and Roland Gift.

Check out the Classic Pop website.