Simple Minds, classic or dud?

I had to go back and listen and see whether I thought this description and praise of "Promised You a Miracle" from the Quietus article was overstated:

'Promised You A Miracle' for all its accessibility and retrospective familiarity is as far a cry from the preset patterns of regular pop as can be imagined. It teeters arrhythmically, glitters and starts, breaks out in distant showers of tinsel and manna. It conjures not just possibilities for a better pop but a better life, to which music could act as some sort of wormhole.

And indeed after doing so, I don't think that it is. Extraordinary record.

yes, i remember simple minds, more than any early 80s band, seeming to point the way to some "better" music world, and that is why so many fans feel like an intense betrayal took place when they went big & bland. sparkle in the rain was the turning point but i feel there were still some great songs on it albeit with a too heavyhanded steve lilywhite touch. once upon a time was 95% shit.

Mr. Snrub: Reel to Real = SM at their most arty. Something akin to what Wire and Magazine were doing at the time (and early Human League in places too). New Gold Dream = less so, though none the worse for it. Just not as "experimental".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1KCqWHhXK8

The X5 box set is a total joy, particularly loving "Reel To Reel" and Empires. There's lots of what-IS-that-sound moments such as the buzzsaw synth on "Changeling" as well as brilliant mutant krautrock like "30 Frames A Second". Even the Bowie/Roxy pastiche of the debut is great fun. Hurray for new opinions of old material!

And, really, "Twist/Run/Repulsion" is so wonderfully insane.

Wow. Indeed it is. Especially to someone like me who knew nothing about Simple Minds beyond "Don't You Forget About Me" and Once Upon A Time. Got some catching up to do, evidently.

Totally blown away by this. It's an exact crossbreed of Roxy Music and OMD, but so good and so cool and such fun.

http://youtu.be/3WXXyacakRo

Let's try that again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXXyacakRo

Yeah, Simple Minds had a ridiculously good set of influences that you can spot in lots of their early work - Roxy, Magazine, Kraftwerk, Bowie, Eno...

picked up 5*5 today on a whim.

debut passed me by and will need a few more spins, ears pricked up a little more with reel to reel, but then i put on empires and dance, and f*ck me.

'i travel' is just huge.

never expected that.

do things get any better i wonder ..

Sons and Fascination is probably my favourite, so in my opinion YES THEY DO

One thing I love about those early Simple Minds albums is Derek Forbes' bass playing. Respect to him for jumping ship at the right time, though.

blasted I Travel on the way to work this morning

to follow up my earlier post : things do indeed get better.
this stuff is absolutely fantastic.
the 1st two albums i need to live with a little longer i think before the penny drops, whereas the rest of this boxset is superb.

I think the band themselves were disappointed by the way the first album turned out. Best thing on Real To Real Cacophony is Changeling.

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

this fear of god : the missing link between shriekback and crackdown era cabaret voltaire.

good spot!

so according to mojo article, derek was never supposed to be bass player, but due to his les paul getting half inched ended up doing the bass lines.

how f*cking lucky is that as i totally agree that his presence in the bands sound is a large factor as to why i have fallen hard for this stuff.

if this is the result then more guitarists need to be a victim of theft, and pick up the bass guitar.

(actually thats not that bad a piece of advise for 2012 .. )

Empires And Dance = Real To Real Cacophony > Sons And Fascination > Life In A Day > Sister Feelings Call

Nice to see the early Simple Minds stuff getting its due. There was a while there where I would only listen to Empires and Dance alone because I was tired for having to explain myself.

The recent box set is excellent and it's definitely nice to have those bonus tracks more widely available.

I have a question for those of you who bought the 2003 remastered CDs and the x5 box: how does the remastering differ between the two, if at all?

It's also got me eyeing that copy of Sparkle in the Rain at my local used CD place. It's one that I've never heard, writing it off years ago as something from the "new" (read: more produced) version of the band that I was not interested in.

EUROPE HAS A LANGUAGE PROBLEM!

Currently spinning Empires and Dance after not listening to it for a while, and once more wondering why 'I Travel' wasn't the huge smash hit that it deserved to be.

Where I come from I Travel was nauseatingly ubiquitous. It's cool though. Decades have passed.

Holy cow, the X5 box is going for $75 and up. I guess print runs these days are miniscule.

And even more on Amazon! Glad I picked it up.

Listening to the 5x5 live album. I'm not a big live album guy but this is shockingly fun. Whoever's doing the bass lines is killing it. It's more guitar focused than the studio takes but it all sounds great and the song choices flow really well.

the bass player was some guy from danny wilson if you can remember them. can't be easy filling derek forbes shoes though

It's an enjoyable album if you can overlook the fact that Jim sings songs like Factory and Calling Your Name like they were on Street Fighting Years

love that bass guitar ZAP sound that occurs at the end of every (other?) measure during "seeing out the angel".. simple but badass..like getting electrocuted but funky

simple minds, demigods of bass slappage and poppage

So there's a new album, and there's a new promo photo.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPGfT72VQAIzOrV.jpg:large

This has garnered various reactions. A friend made an edit:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPGslppVoAALtpb.jpg:large

Oh yeah, this band are still going and didn't break up in 1984 like I often pretend they did.

rotten bastards - surely one of them could have helped jim up off the floor?

Charlie's not paid enough for that now.

after all jim's done for him too

Man, do I dislike their Breakfast Club anthem

You don’t seem to say much about the song itself (you know, musically)?

I saw the Simple Minds a few weeks ago. As alcoholic dementia is setting in I'll say it was a fine show (I have no capacity to evaluate quality of live performance for bands covering their own past glory). Worked well enough but I have been obsessed with Simple Minds videos since that night due to alcoholic dementia.

In particular I have been listening to "All the Things She Said, the first line of which I have been trying to parse and can only arrive at "Don't you look back on a bagel or swirl."

This AM I googled the lyrics and apparently it's "Don't you look back on a big lost world." I think that's fucking total BS. Listen to it clearly, he's saying "bagel."

Get fucked, LyricsDB.com

From our local paper, seems like a nice guy:

The brother of the lead singer of Simple Minds has been jailed for nine years after a judge deemed he was a danger to the public after stalking two fans.

Paul Kerr, brother of rock star Jim Kerr, accused J0hn Fagan of rape and murder and threatened to sexually assault his wife Julie in what started out as an online spat over the Don’t You (Forget About Me) band’s latest album.

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/18141149.simple-minds-jim-kerrs-brother-paul-kerr-jailed-nine-years-stalking-fans/

9 years is a long sentence. I was going to say that prison sentences in Scotland are usually a lot shorter than in England when I realized this trial was in England.

yeah it does sound p severe for an online argument, but his previous offences are a bit of a worry:

“I note that your previous convictions both arose out of seemingly innocuous business disputes, one which resulted in the victim’s home being set alight and the second in you breaking into the victim’s home and assaulting them with a weapon.

“I therefore find that you pose a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm occasioned by you.”

Are we sure he never played drums for the Housemartins?

haha

the Don’t You (Forget About Me) band

ouch

fuck. reading the story the spark of the campaign of abuse was mr fagan replying to a facebook post by paul kerr saying the new simple minds album was "pure shit".

it's a wonder any ILXors still have unburnt houses

we don't live in houses -- unless you mean glass houses

and all fagan actually wrote was:

"I’ve been a fan for more than 30 years and I think it’s a mistake to get rid of the two former band members."