Simple Minds, classic or dud?

the plot thickens!

facebook is making people crazy, wtf

Hate to think what would have happened had got started on the surfeit of bad acoustic, covers and live albums

Live in the City of Light is classic tho

You can take the boy out of Toryglen...

Judge Stephen Mooney asked: “How many mankinis does a man need?”

"Big Sleep" is so great

Yes, a wonderful song that shows how expressive and expansive they could be when they didn't have to freight everything with "importance".

I am in fact listening to the new one to kick off October 21, Day of Riches

it's kind of bad sure but also much more enjoyable than expected, will def get 'surprisingly good later work' kudos

the songs are nothing special but it is notably well produced and has a good sound, v bright and vigorous

It's their best album since Scary Monsters.

Just finished Graeme Thompson's book about the early Minds (stopping wisely after 'Once Upon A Time') it is definitely worth any fan's investigation.

It's alriiiight

Album that is, not book

The last TFF keeps coming to mind and I'd say they're on par

Definitely some likable stuff on here, the mastering is absurdly bad though. Celtic fiddly bits of 'Solstice Kiss' not welcome

Solstice Kiss was the best song

Yeah, possibly, although the title's use in the lyrics is hilariously clunky, you can imagine these old codgers trying to think of inspiration and coming up with this

Next album: Ash Wednesday Hug

Simple Minds Superfans Can Invest In A New Gold Dream: Songwriting + Sound Recording Royalties For 1977-1981 Material Now Up For Sale

As of last weekend, someone was selling the royalty rights to an early career batch of 107 songs by Simple Minds. Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill, the current members of Simple Minds Tours Ltd. sold their catalog to their current label, BMG. These are the sorts of big money deals where rock stars of as certain age take a cash out and at least in this case, they didn’t sell to one of the upstart music IP firms like Hipgnosis. And they are becoming very commonplace.

Given the list of songs, and the points in time where past members exited the band, I’m suspecting that these rights being auctioned are from original drummer Brian McGee’s shares in the band. His time ended in 1981 as he was taken to the limit in his years playing drums, and yes, driving the band all over Europe in vans since he was the one with a driver’s license. If it were Derek Forbes, it would include material from “New Gold Dream [81, 82, 83, 84]” and “Sparkle In The Rain.” McNeill only left after “Street Fighting Years.” So it has to be McGee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTJ26DktHgA

reposted from the obits thread:

Kenny Hyslop, Scottish drumming legend and all round good guy who taught 1000s of people how to drum.

Played with Simple Minds and then had his own band, Set The Tone.

― stirmonster, Tuesday, 17 September 2024 13:39 (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

he was the drummer after brian mcgee but left a year later to be replaced by mel gaynor. think he's only on one recording: 'promised you a miracle'

thanks for posting that doc btw mares!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9sQJFeo2-s

Mick Macneil, Derek Forbes and Brian McGee sharing their memories of Kenny Hyslop. Interesting chat about Promised You A Miracle from about 17.45 onwards - it was Kenny who found the main riff for that song on a funk track, which I hadn't actually heard before (they play a little snippet of it - would love to know what it is). Can't entirely follow why they all fell out about it though.

I believe it's "Too Through' by Bad Girls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4HluTup2g0

yep

Musically, "Promised You a Miracle" was inspired by an obscure 1981 dance song called "Too Through" by Bad Girls, with lead vocals by Jocelyn Brown

oh nice one, thanks! weirldy that was already in my wants list, so i guess i must've heard it before and not made the connection. not sure how i missed that!

Around 1991 I worked briefly in a little recording studio in Ayrshire, a Glaswegian session guitarist was friends with the owner and would come down with all sorts of waifs and strays.

Kenny Hyslop appeared with him one time, in full Ibiza meets Madchester dayglo top and bright dungarees, seemed a nice enough guy, bit of a caner by the looks of things, didn't take them long before I got the 'Promised You A Miracle' story, his arse was obviously very burnt by it all.

ah wow

i watched that doc the other night. i really enjoyed it though there were a few odd omissions.

i knew Kenny a wee bit in the late 90s / early 2000s. he was a regular at nights i put on in Glasgow for a while and persuaded me to let him play percussion along to some records one night. this is generally an ill advised disaster waiting to happen but he pulled it off with aplomb.

he was a man who loved a drink!

i watched that doc over two days. first half was like wow, this really is the best music ever, then i put it on again today and what the hell happened? fucking hell, what is this shite? was great to see the likes of steve hillage popping up though

I was the same. The first few albums were so good, but the bombastic stadium rock stuff is just unlistenable now. Never was a band such a game of two halves

Can't entirely follow why they all fell out about it though.

I would guess that Hyslop was aggrieved about not being included in the writing credits. As Forbes says, "he should have got a finder's fee".

Simple Minds are one of those bands where you can pinpoint almost the exact moment where they jumped off a cliff. At the beginning, they captured perfectly that sense we had of being the first working-class generation to have access to European travel and culture in a way that our parents never did. Their songs exuded a wide-eyed awe at discovering big city landscapes ('I Travel', 'Theme from Great Cities' etc.) that made it seem for those of us starting to study and work abroad that, yes, everything is possible.

This was great up to and including the first three songs of 'Sparkle in the Rain': 'Up on the Catwalk' is an effective opener, 'Speed Your Love to Me' is a great pop song and even the riff on 'Waterfront' is bludgeoningly effective at first. But Kerr's blood-curdling yell of 'Aye-Aye-Aye-Uhhh!' halfway through 'Waterfront' marks a transition away from his previous persona as enchanted observer to being the pompous crowd manipulator of the second half of his career. The rest of 'Sparkle in the Rain' is completely unlistenable, in part due to the album's oppressive production, but mainly due to Kerr's Messianic persona from 'East at Easter' onwards ('We will rock you, little child'), not forgetting their hideous cover of 'Street Hassle'.

I blame Bono.

Sometimes I think about the seductiveness oddness of a song like “70 Cities As Love Brings The Fall” and start to wonder if the seeds of SM’s downfall were also the key to their prior greatness, the unabashed pomposity was what ruined them eventually but it’s also part and parcel of the essential mystery of their earlier work.

undoubtedly, but definitely a point worth making! just trying to listen to sparkle again and struck by how up on tbe catwalk holds the seeds of the stone roses. that shuffle in the drums is pure baggy, and i can totally hear ian brown singing the 'i will be there' chorus

Speed You Love To Me foes sound great though, some spot of misty-eyed celtic funk rock, gonna pretend its jesse rae.

I'm a ling-standing Waterfront hater but the quiet bits in between all the bombast are really quite lovely in a early China Crisis kinda way. The rest of it is charlie doing that horrible The Edge-like non-shredding, sending shards of guitar crashing down from atop a skyscraper, all to the beat of Gary Glitter's Rock n Roll pt 2

long not ling, i'm obviously still away in tbe heather after Speed Your Love

Is Waterfront proto-schaffel? Prog schaffel maybe?

They went right off the rails trying to compete with U2. I did blame Bono earlier but the real culprits where Kerr and Burchill of course.

It was around this time jokes about Jim changing his name to Juan started emerging in Glasgow.

he didn't even did get his rewards for becoming a total arse, as in getting invited to g8 summits to act like an obsequious clown around putin and blair. or maybe that's a plus.

He is an arse but I can't hate him too much because he's a proper Celtic fan (so is Burchill) (as opposed to green and white cosplayers like B. Gillespie).

Second half of Sparkle is a struggle. Street Hassle cover is no Spacemen 3 thats for sure. White Hot Day is a big old load of nothing. Kick Inside Of Me is probably the low point. Starts off Jim loudly announcing himself like John Lydon at the start of Public Image and then he goes for this edgy rock n roll thing, maybe in his head it sounds like Alan Vega but it comes off more Billy Idol. Bassline is cool though, very Magazine. Whats that of their's, the when-i'm-in-the-air one? Because that.

Talking of bass, the playing in C Moon is my highlight of side two, lovely soft volume swelly stuff, wonder how he played that? Really exquisite, makes me think of Eberhard Weber. I like Shake Off The Ghosts a lot too (its instrumental for starters). The shuffley drum thing comes back, but this time in slo-mo. Very Mark Brzezicki, could actually be a Big Country-side, quite an emotional bit of music for me.

b-side. sorry my fone is kaputt

I like Shake Off The Ghosts a lot too (its instrumental for starters).

'Theme from Great Cities' is arguably Kerr's best vocal performance.

I do like Sparkle, but it is front-loaded, reminds me a lot of The Unforgettable Fire, a mix of really big songs and very slight experiments/jams.

Inspired by this thread I just listened to Sparkle in the Rain for the first time in several decades. I have to say it was a bit of a slog to get through! Empires and Dance/Sons and Fascination is their peak, New Gold Dream is good too, it has a lightness that the bloated Sparkle lacks, but I hear the beginning of the rot as well, the bombast creeping in...

Gotta admit that I was a child of the SM bombast, I still have a measure of love for Once Upon A Time (but nothing really after that), if you squint a bit you can just say 'Oh it's the Big Music, like The Waterboys...'

Jimmy Iovine with his 'hey you guys, I don't hear a SONG, where's the HITS YOU GUYS', fuck that clot.