Simple Minds, classic or dud?

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.

Enjoyed the documentary, but the middle bit is the best because that's where the focus is. I'm a bit disappointed that - like the band heh? - the focus dissipates once we reach the late 80s and it all becomes a bit too simplified for my liking. Kerr seems to have forgotten that, uncool or not, Simple Minds were still selling more albums than "The Stone Roses and Madchester" over 89-91. And who apparently even knows what they did after Street Fighting Years. Did they still have two UK No. 2 albums after that?

Sparkle in the Rain is fantastic, through and through. Though it took me a while to see that. It's my favourite album for Derek Forbes if not my actual favourite Simple Minds (one of the three before it). The majesty of "Up on the Catwalk", so undeniable and splashy but compellingly oblique - a marble fountain done all modernist, like. It's the old 'may be meaningless but sure as hell doesn't sound it so it isn't' 1984 business at its best. "East at Easter" and "Shake Off the Ghosts" still have that 81/82 glacial texture put to an excellent if poignant ending. "Waterfront", actual Scottish industrial music (cf. Big Country's Steeltown), but on a killer catwalk bassline with the business of writing an actual tune a secondary concern, a la Frankie's "Relax". Those wave-poll bass whooshes on "White Hot Day" make it much the same. No mention of Lillywhite in the doc a bit surprising and sad, considering they even arranged for Steve Hillage to compliment John Leckie to his face.

But along came Jimmy Iovine, who told them to knock this 'atmosphere first, song-as-in-a-song-you-can-play-on-an-acoustic-guitar second' malarkey. Kerr seemed to really take that to heart.

love a westbury post, even when their taste confounds me. gotta say i found it really sad when they talked about forbes being kicked out of the band. someone just slowly fucking up their big opportunity, must be an awful thing to live with. alcohol is truly cursed. was going to say 'and what iconic basslines has john giblin ever written anyway?' and then i remembered he played on cdb's 'the lady in red'

According to Derek Forbes he was sacked from the band over his addiction to the laydeez.

haha fair enough

A few months ago I did a post on facebook where I summed up my feelings, which I repeated last week when someone brought up a Francois K. mix in Francois K's World of Echo facebook group. He came on to say it wasn't his best work.

Regardless my take was as follows and mostly aligns with most here...

First album has some great songs but too slavish to Magazine and Roxy among others.
Second album is the same but now with Kraftwerk and Joy Division influence.
I like both of those albums and they have some classic songs, but they're not game-changing.

Empires and Dance has them coming into their own, and Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call is an embarrassment of riches. Just amazing stuff.

New Gold Dream is a masterpiece song and sound-wise...but it has a quality to the production that's a bit more homogenous and less interesting than the 3 before.

Sparkle in the Rain and Once Upon a Time push the synths more and more to the background and bring anthemic rock to the foreground, but I still like some of the songs and performances. They're not pushing any envelopes but there's some good songs. Losing Derek Forbes between the two is a big problem. I guess your tolerance for a certain type of overproduced 80s rock will impact your enjoyment of those two albums.

Nothing past those is of any interest to me whatsoever. But I like All the Things She Said. I love Alive and Kicking, but maybe that's as much nostalgia. I probably like Alive and Kicking more than anything U2 did that sounds like that.

This Herald article on Forbes explains why he, Brian McGee and Mick MacNeil decided not to take part in the recent documentary, and gives Forbes' perspective on his sacking. Jim Kerr doesn't come out of the incident looking great.

Charlie, Mick and Paul Kerr, Jim’s brother, came into the office. Charlie and Mick were both crying, and Paul was raging about Jim, who was not there. I ended up talking to Jim on the phone. Jim just wouldn’t listen or give me a chance to redeem myself. I had disappeared from the band too often, giving too much attention to my girlfriend, and not nearly enough to the band. But, whatever the reason, I was sacked and that was it.

Jim on Sparkle is night and day from the albums prior, even New Gold Dream. It's like a stage hypnotist has made him believe his is Bono. There's still much to like on the album, but it's inescapable

What I find interesting is that Achtung Baby has so much in common with what the Minds were doing circa Empires-Sons And Fascination, yet by 1991 Simple Minds had half turned into Runrig. INXS, Deacon Blue etc all had a go at 'doing an Achtung Baby' to some extent, but the Minds seemed to double down by the time of She's A River, by trying to keep the stadium dream alive

I thought “She’s a River” was an attempt to sound like Achtung Baby (or themselves, earlier), but that said, I did watch them at Glastonbury ‘95 giving it all the “Lemme see your hands in the air” to a few hundred disinterested crusties (and me).

Nothing past those is of any interest to me whatsoever. But I like All the Things She Said

Yeah i always liked that one too, there is something beautiful lurking in that song somewhere. The video is charmingly terrible, i dont know if those were state of the art special effects back then, but they always seemed to conjur up some bbc sci-fi show from several years earlier, blakes 7 or something. Jim wears a variety of different costumes, all of them awful. When i saw them live in tbis era he had tight black leggings, a huge white blouse, an embroidered waistcoat and a giant black beret bejewelled with a large green stone that looked like a fucking time crystal or something. what we he even going for? renaissance space nonce?

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

rennainonce

it absolutely looks like the intro to 1986-era Doctor Who

they all had naff retro-future clothing too

Oh yeah, "All the Things She Said" is a good song. Jim, Jim, those stripey breeks, what were you thinking?

I've seen someone else claim the Minds in 1995 were trying to do an Achtung Baby themselves, but I cannot hear that at all. They sound like Then Jericho

Or on Hypnotised (which is kinda great): INXS

I'm going to go see Derek Forbes in November. Probably Scotland's greatest ever bassist. https://www.stlukesglasgow.com/events/renegade-communications-presents-a-very-simple-mind-on-tour-derek-forbes-ex-simple-minds/

i was recently flying back to Glasgow from London and Jim Kerr was in the queue in front of me waiting to board. A man came over and said to him "You're someone famous aren't you? Where do I know your face from?" and without missing a beat Kerr replied "Crimewatch".

LOL, nice one Jim!

(xp) There is Jack Bruce to consider too.

Simple Minds did do a 'Pop', I suppose, or rather a late 90s 'electronica' album. The thing about Neapolis though is that if anything it's a roots move, where - at least in theory - they remember the band they were in the early 80s and largely forget the intervening decade and a half. Ofc it's not that simple but I do enjoy it and how it announces its 'we're no longer a stadium band oh noes' from the sleeve alone.

Also,

love a westbury post, even when their taste confounds me.

― Bernard Quidbins (NickB), Thursday, 19 September 2024 14:02 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

thanks! but even Simple Minds worked hard to convince me here because ten years ago i did not get Sparkle-era SM at all. I suppose there's no real consensus.

One of my parents' first concerts together was Simple Minds at Milton Keynes, 1991, opened by the Stranglers and OMD. I've never seen a copy of Real Life in the house. How the singles go I struggle to remember. I do wonder how well all those songs, invisible on the radio in the years to come, really went down to such an enormous crowd.

Ever since I heard "New Gold Dream" I've been on this quest to find a song with that sense of openness, of possibility.

The German 12" is the one

Yep, I own the deluxe edition of the album.

The bottin edit is the one!

I went to see Derek Forbes tonight doing a Q&A and live set. He is extremely entertaining and very funny. Lots of great anecdotes. Jim Kerr's ears must have been on fire. He talked quite a lot about Propaganda too and did an absolutely note perfect impression of Claudia Brücken singing.

He then played live for an hour with a drummer (I didn't catch who they were) and keyboard player (Brian McNeil, once upon a time a member of China Crisis). They were truly excellent. Forbes sang (very well). He has still got it - his bass playing sounded incredible and I didn't miss the lack of guitar at all). He played close to my dream Simple Minds set -

Waterfront
Celebrate
Love Song
Changeling
I Travel
New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)
The American
Theme for Great Cities

Whoa awesome!

oh man, that sounds fantastic! was hoping you'd do a gig report - god, i would've had mad goosebumps at the opening notes of some of those songs

internet says the drummer was probably tony soave who was in the silencers (who i'm sure you already know were the band that fingerprintz turned into, that drummer wasn't in them though)

it was indeed tony soave.

and yes, several mad goosebumps moments.

Wow sounds great.

nice set

The documentary is off youtube now, is Paramount Plus really the only place its showing?

Another person uploaded it on youtube, enjoyed it. I'm still quite new to the band and kind of hoping I'll like some of the albums after the first 5.