Simple Minds, classic or dud?

Nobody seems to give a hoot that Simple Minds are playing "New Gold Dream" in its entirity (sp?) on their forthcoming tour. Someone somewhere (in summertime) must care?

I'd care if it was followed by a ceremonious burning of master tapes from 1984 or so forward.

I'd throw some extra petrol onto that particular pyre, Ned.

Nobody seems to give a hoot that Simple Minds are playing "New Gold Dream" in its entirity (sp?) on their forthcoming tour. Someone somewhere (in summertime) must care?

I would care only if it was the same lineup that recorded New Gold Dream, otherwise it would be like watching Midge Ure perform all of Vienna. Yeah, the songs are great, but...

"Themes For Great Cities" anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FfCxLvV2nc

I mean holy hell. That is only a first place to START with these guys.

Do you think I've fucking forgotten about The American????!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FfCxLvV2nc

WERE THEY BETTER THAN U2????????????///

I fucking think they were better than early U2, yes.

After pulling out some old SM for my Forgotten UK Singles mix, I re-listened to everything. Aside from Andy K's AMG entries, ILM is the only other place with anything interesting to say about their early albums. Great read!

Generally, Simple Minds were at their best until 1982, but after that "Real Life" and "Street Fighting Years" >>>>>>>>> "Sparkle In The Rain".

Last night I read that after both Billy Idol and Bryan Ferry turned down Keith Forsey's offer of "Don't You...," Jim Kerr wasn't keen on the song either. Even though they went ahead and recorded it, Kerr never liked the song. Now I can't find where I read that. I wonder if he also didn't like Once Upon A Time. Street Fighting Years was a valiant attempt at an antidote to the embarrassing 80s bombast, but still sounds like a dud to me.

Street Fighting Years was a valiant attempt at an antidote to the embarrassing 80s bombast

?!? We're talking about a record produced by Trever Horn. It's bombast in excelsis!

Actually "Don't You Forget About Me" is a great song in a lot of ways, but it isn't a Simple Minds song, and it also helped pull them in the wrong direction although they were on the way in that direction on "Sparkle In The Rain" already.

"Street Fighting Years" I see more as a return to the bombast of their 80-82 era. It didn't work out quite as good, but it still had its moment, and I consider it a much better album than the U3,5 stadium rock of "Sparkle In The Rain" and "Once Upon a Time".

I loved SFY as a kid and in a way I thank that album for being some kind of gateway to quality music. I haven't heard it in 20 years and have no real desire to.

Hrm, well it wasn't poppy bombast. It seems like they tried not to be too commercial.

I can see where you're coming from with that, Geir; however, it is a pretty poor album. I do still like a couple of tracks from it - the first one, and This is your land.

On the other hand, I have been very much enjoying the first couple of "Themes" compilations, especially the second one - I like quite a lot of Sparkle in the Rain, and the second themes thing has a a kind of long remix of "Shake off the ghosts"

I saw them last night and, to my surprise, they did Love Song, I Travel and half of the NGD album. I should point out it was a free festival - I doubt I'd have gone if I'd had to go through the effort and expense of getting tickets. Pleasantly surprised, though, as I say.

Speaking of "Love Song" -- from 1981, a pretty amazing TV performance (it's just a mime to the studio cut, but dig, well, everything else!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq96dUQ87jk

LOLs at the satchel. Give us a sandwich, jimbo.

Nice name, called a tape that once.

Yeah, I do love the random satchel. Definitely rocking a proto-Eldritch look too.

That satchel contained all Jim Kerr's artistic integrity. He lost it along the way.

Seriously, does anyone know exactly what happened to this once-great band? Did they consciously choose to just sell out or was it evolutionary? Listening to "New Gold Dream" and "Sparkle In The Rain" yesterday, I've come all the way around in preferring the earlier arty stuff. Given the pop aspirations of those two records, "Don't You Forget About Me" clearly isn't the beginning of the end, though it is the point of no return. So it would seem that the move towards commerciality was gradual, like many of their peers who started off outside the mainstream of early 80s UK rock only to find themselves somehow embraced by it.

Seriously, does anyone know exactly what happened to this once-great band?

Isn't what happened to them the same as what happened to just about every other arty post-punk band that didn't split up, though? I don't think a band-specific explanation is needed.

Isn't what happened to them the same as what happened to just about every other arty post-punk band that didn't split up, though? I don't think a band-specific explanation is needed.

Not exactly. Yes, bands like Psychedelic Furs and Killing Joke put out one awful album, but then returned to their roots. Simple Minds just kept getting worse and worse.

In relistening to the early albums a bit here, I'm a little surprised to realize that a slight unspoken influence on it all was Sparks, because there doesn't seem to be much of them as having such a role. But while Jim Kerr obviously isn't trying for Russell Mael's falsetto or anything, there's a lot of the hyperactive nervous tension at work as well the sense of instrumental stateliness that the Maels also can call up when so inclined, especially given the prominence of keyboards in both bands. Again, not wanting to overstate the carry-over but Life in a Day and Real to Real Cacophony have tangential connections to glam-era Sparks on that front, while Empire and Dance and Sons and Fascination parallel No. 1 in Heaven and Terminal Jive (for Moroder substitute Hillage, I guess). After that divergences were more pronounced.

This fucking band, why the hell did they willingly go from this I'm about to link to where they ended up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p8jYN0qXxc

"I'm a little surprised to realize that a slight unspoken influence on it all was Sparks, because there doesn't seem to be much of them as having such a role. But while Jim Kerr obviously isn't trying for Russell Mael's falsetto or anything"

Yes, he does! Just listen 'No Cure', Ned - pure Maelism. And a few other tracks on 'Life In A Day' too, though not so blatantly.

who here has heard all these albums? you win a prize if you have.

# Live in the City of Light (1987) (2-LP/2-CD) live album
# Street Fighting Years (1989) 8th studio album
# Real Life (1991) 9th studio album
# Good News from the Next World (1995) 10th studio album
# Neapolis (1998) 11th studio album
# Our Secrets are the Same (originally 2000) 12th studio album (finally issued as CD#5 from Silver Box (2004))
# Neon Lights (2001) (covers album)
# Cry (2002) 13th studio album
# Black & White 050505 (2005) 14th studio album
# Sunday Express - Live (Volumes 1 & 2) (2007) (2-CD live album) (promotional exclusive Sunday Express free release)
# Graffiti Soul (2009) 15th studio album
# Searching for the Lost Boys (2009) (bonus covers album included in the "Graffiti Soul" Deluxe edition 2-CD set)

think i need to hear neapolis!

and to think that there are seven whole other albums that i adore! (once upon a time i can live without)

I still haven't heard Life In A Day. (or indeed anything past "Don't You Forget About Me" since I was very young in the 80s). Is it really worth it?

i don't know? i had no idea they were so prolific. never heard anything past the 80's either. but i gather its just mr. ex-chrissie hynde and lots of session people for a lot of later stuff. kinda have a morbid curiosity.

just so weird because everything up to and including sparkle in rain i dig SO much and then i have almost no interest because of what happened post-john hughes.

No I meant the first album, sorry my post was a bit confusing.

oh sorry! i'm tired. i like it. it's their roxy/magazine album. they were aping other people but they did it pretty good. i pretty much listen to anything like that from 1979, so, i'm not all that picky.

but, jeez, listening to empires and dance tonight, that always sounds so amazing to me. everything from that first line-up 79 to 81. i love it. 3 years! that's nothing now. they made 4 amazing albums in that time after life in a day.

i think Neapolis was supposed to be a return to the classic sound, heard it's not so great tho

i might youtube some stuff tomorrow, but i'm a little afraid to...

hey i liked some of that new OMD anyway.

just mr. ex-chrissie hynde and lots of session people for a lot of later stuff.

that's what did these guys in. i gave up after reviewing Real Life w/o enthusiasm.

early stuff like "I Travel" has aged v well.

I still like "Don't You Forget About Me" more than most people seem to, tho it obviously isn't a patch on their earlier work. It was "Belfast Child" that nailed down the coffin and posted it to the moon imo

but, jeez, listening to empires and dance tonight, that always sounds so amazing to me. everything from that first line-up 79 to 81. i love it. 3 years! that's nothing now. they made 4 amazing albums in that time after life in a day.

Yeah it's a pretty astonishing run as much for how they so effortlessly switch up their sound each time and remain so good. Of the albums from Reel To Real.. to New Gold Dream I can never decide whether Sons & Fascination/Sister Feelings Call are ever so slightly lesser or actually secretly the most interesting, and that's probably the SM I've listened to most in the past couple of years, it's like a puzzle.

One thing that interests me and I don't know much about is whether and how the band was responding to currents around them. I mean obv Reel To Real... is their experimental electronic post-punk record and as unprecedented as it sounds to me I can get why they were interested in making a record like that. But what provoked the shift to an even more electronic, pseudo-discoid sound on Empires and Dance? What were they listening to? And if they were really into disco or whatever, why did they suddenly switch to elaborate art rock less than year later? And if they were really into elaborate art rock, why the switch to synth pop less than a year after that? Were they just following their own muse, or was this reflective of micro-movements in trends that have (apart from the general notion of post-punk --> new pop) now been submerged? I wouldn't know.

it's a mystery! i would like to read some interviews from that time. were they huge krautrock fans? Empires and Dance has that vibe. Hunters & Collectors tried the krautrock thing around the same time with Conny Plank, but the results were nowhere near as good.

we know for sure that they were big Roxy fans. Big Bowie fans. Big Magazine fans. They had to have been big Ultravox fans. Ultravox mach one. Empires definitely has the Factory vibe as well, so we can assume that they were aware of and listening to Joy Division.

okay, looking over their wikipedia page - which is actually fairly comprehensive and well-written - this is interesting:

"The next album, Empires and Dance, was another stylistic departure, and signalled the influence of Kraftwerk, Neu! and similar European artists on the band. During this period of their career Simple Minds promoted themselves as being a European band, rather than Scottish or British."

I don't know HOW they promoted themselves as "European" exactly, but it makes sense. The album covers. The song titles. The whole aesthetic. They were loving the German thing.

Recently, I listened to a radio Scotland interview with Kerr around '84 or so, maybe earlier, just as Sparkle was coming out and they had just done a short UK tour and I was surprised at how crazed and preachy he sounded, albeit in an amusing way. But he was talking about music in really similar terms to how Bono did back then.
I'm certain something did happen just prior to NGD, enough to make them junk the European Guy schtick and move wholeheartedly towards The Big Music, which was more fashionable, arguably more in keeping with their roots and much more potentially profitable. They also had Mel Gaynor by this point, a big loud, capable rock drummer.

Oh yeah, if you were still doing plink-plonk barely melodic stuff in 1984, you were doing it wrong. Anthems is where the money was.

I'm certain something did happen just prior to NGD, enough to make them junk the European Guy schtick and move wholeheartedly towards The Big Music

Jim Kerr met Bono

Yeah but for all that the songs are 'bigger' and more straightforward 'new gold dream' actually sounds less like U2 than 'sons and fascination' does. That's what I find interesting about the band's early career: all the reversals.

Maybe we shouldn't have cashed in

Nice fauxhawk there, Jim.

OMG that haircut he looks like a hungover monk

Good article anyway. Classic older-but-wiser moves. M. I always love that 'total hamburger music' story you tell upthread.

oh yeah - even though I still have a soft spot for "don't you forget about me" this all sounds promising.

I have the X5 box set on it's way, looking forward to the bonus tracks and the full immersion!