Simple Minds, classic or dud?

TS: Miccio's Bono-dancing or Paul Stanley's foxy-dancing!

Andy and Ned have summed it up quite well. Most of the ideas are still present - disco punk (albeit more "30 Frames A Second" than "I Travel", crazy synths, sound collage, weird lyrics - but whereas on Empires & Dance the band focus that down to a relatively consistent thematic approach, Reel To Real is more all over the place. On the one hand, there's more "proper" punkish songs like "Citizen", "Changeling" and "Calling Your Name" (all of which put me in mind of a funkier, glammier Joy Division), and on the other there's quite a few weird but really engaging instrumentals and just totally fucked-up stuff like "Naked Eye" and "Carnival", both of which sound like the backing music for a circus organised by violently pathological schizophrenics. Also Kerr sounds like he's flipping out the entire time, whereas on E&D he sounds much more abstracted/distant.

In many ways I like the "idea" of Empires & Dance a bit more - the collision of dub, disco and punk, basically - but Reel To Real Cacophony has more killer cuts eg. the wonderful "Premonition". I love some of the really outthere stuff on E&D like "This Fear of Gods" but I'm always vaguely disappointed that there aren't more uptempo numbers like "I Travel".

Listening to the old albums this week has been a great but disorienting experience: as a kid, I always blamed SM's downfall on Jim Kerr and his pseudo-evangelical sub-Bono turn, but what's struck me is that even in the good days he was *always* a ham -- maybe more cryptic and less puffed-up, but the Euro affectations on E&D ("hey waiter, I'm first class") now seem like they're cut from the same cloth.

Which leads me to conclude that what really changed was the *music* -- and for some reason, that had never occurred to me before. Maybe because they were often so trance-y and grandiose on the good stuff, it was easy to miss the tight propulsiveness behind it... whereas "Alive and Kicking" is just shapeless, there's no rhythmic backbone holding it together at all. I seem to recall that the bass player defected to Propaganda's touring band between Sparkle and Once Upon A Time, which in retrospect makes a lot of sense (on both sides of the equation -- Propaganda had a lot of the same grandeur, but always with an eye on the dancefloor).

Is that the Kibble Palace in on the back of the sleeve to Celebration?

They could perhaps win the prize for quickest dive from heroes to arse in rock. Street Fighting Years is terrible.

I watched them for a bit at Glastonbury in '95 and it was quite funny; Jim Kerr was leaping around as if he was in front of an audience of 50,000 adoring fans, and in fact there were about 500 bored crusties.

1. Life in a Day (Burchill/Kerr) - 4:06
2. Chelsea Girl (Burchill/Kerr) - 4:34
3. Premonition (Kerr/Simple Minds) - 5:29
4. Factory (Kerr/Simple Minds) - 4:15
5. Calling Your Name (Kerr/Simple Minds) - 5:07
6. I Travel (Kerr/Simple Minds) - 4:02
7. Changeling (Kerr/Simple Minds) - 4:13
8. Celebrate (Kerr/Simple Minds) - 5:10
9. Thirty Frames a Second (Kerr/Simple Minds) - 6:54
10. Kaleidoscope (Kerr/Simple Minds) - 4:17

(Though I love both "Changeling" and "30 Frames..")

You're right, however. The earlier records are stranger, and appealingly so.

Wait that reminds me I must propose to Dan. Oh wait there's a problem there...

I'd probably have more posts than you if it weren't for Tim.

Tracer your euphamisms flow so naturally.

I know that! HMPH. I'll spare my jokes on other people!

(Baby still coming along okay?)

I cannae stand anything post-NGD. Altho, Futurama used "Dont you forget about me" to great (and sniffly) effect on one episode.

I loved New Gold Dream and Sparkle in the Rain but I remember seeing a Simple Minds concert in 84 and thinking Jim K was the corniest audience-pumper this side of Bono. "GIVE ME YOUR HONDS!"

What a shame he took that walk with Bono on the beach and decided to become U3.

Is their cover of "Sign 'O' The Times" the worst cover version ever?

OTM

did Kerr actually sing 'now he's doin' horse, it's June'? i can't remember

I saw them in 84 too and it's funny how quickly they ditched all their old material in pursuit of that stadium-appropriate sound. The whole set was Sparkle In The Rain/New Gold Dream stuff apart from 'The American' which I suppose was the one really bombastic song from the older albums.

That's on the Celebration compilation but where did they cull that song from? I've never heard it. Is it some lost b-side, and did they put it on the first Themes compilation?

I've never weighed on this thread, to my amazement. Classic up until New Gold Dream. I love how in "Twist/Run/Repulsion" the French girl's reciting an excerpt of Nevsky Prospect by Gogol.

The story is about a man who sees a beautiful girl everyday on the Nevsky Prospect in St. Petersburg and falls in love with her little by little. One day, she lets him follow her (this is detailed in the text quoted in "Twist/Run/Repulsion") up to her flat and he discovers that she's a prostitute. The character becomes dangerously depressed after knowing the truth about the girl he loves and dies at the end of the text.

TWIST is about this vertigo of love, when you feel you are falling in love, you feel a bit drunk, and you're leaving earth... RUN when you rush through the girl you love, when you've dare to talk to this girl who paralyzes you... REPULSION is the disappointment. She was "his innocent, his special one" and she's just a whore. She belongs to all the men who pass...

The excerpt quoted in the song is this (but I think this excerpt continues on for where it ends in "Twist/Run/Repulsion"):
Mais était-il sûr d'être bien éveillé? Se pouvait-il que celle pour un céleste regard de qui il était prêt à donner sa vie, celle qu'il tenait déjà pour une ineffable bénédiction d'avoir pu suivre jusqu'à sa demeure, se pouvait-il qu'elle fût si bienveillante et attentionnée pour lui? Il gravit à grands pas l'escalier. Ses pensées n'étaient plus de la terre; il n'était point enflammé de l'ardeur d'une passion terrestre, non, il était à cet instant pur et exempt de vice comme l'adolescent virginal qui ne respire encore que vague besoin spirituel d'aimer. Et cela même qui, dans un homme corrompu, aurait éveillé d'immodestes pensées, ne faisait au contraire que purifier les siennes. Cette confiance que lui témoignait une belle et faible créature, cette confiance lui imposait le devoir d'une rigueur chevaleresque, le devoir d'exécuter servilement tous les ordres qu'elle lui donnerait. Il souhaitait seulement que ces ordres fussent les plus difficiles, les plus impossibles à exécuter, afin de pouvoir vouer davantage de ses forces à en surmonter la difficulté. il ne se doutait pas que quelque secrète et grave circonstance eût obligé l'inconnue à se fier à lui; qu'on allait sûrement exiger de lui d'exceptionnels services, et il sentait déjà en lui la force et la résolution de tout accomplir. L'escalier montait en spirale, et ses textes se pressaient dans le même tournoiement. "Avancez prudemment!" fit une voix dont le son était celui d'une harpe et qui fit encore vibrer tous ses nerfs. Dans l'obscurité du dernier étage l'inconnue frappa à une porte, celle-ci s'ouvrit et ils entrèrent ensemble. Une femme d'aspect assez agréable les accueillit une chandelle à la main, mais elle regarda Piskariov d'un air si singulier et si effronté qu'il baissa malgré lui les yeux. Ils pénétrèrent dans la pièce. Trois figures féminines, chacune dans son coin, se présentèrent à ses regards. L'une interrogeait les cartes; une autre, assise au piano, jouait avec deux doigts le pitoyable simulacre d'une ancienne polonaise; la troisième, devant un miroir, peignait ses longs cheveux et ne songeait pas un instant à interrompre sa toilette à l'arrivée d'un inconnu. On ne sait quel déplaisant désordre, tel qu'on ne peut le trouver que dans le logement négligé d'un célibataire, régnait de toutes parts. Les meubles, d'assez bonne apparence, étaient couverts de poussière; l'araignée avait garni de sa toile les moulures du lambris; à la porte entrebaillée d'une autre pièce brillait une botte avec son éperon et se devinaient les parements rouges d'un uniforme; une forte voix d'homme et un rire féminin se faisaient entendre sans la moindre contrainte.
Dieu, où s'était-il fourvoyé! Il se refusa tout d'abord à y croire et commença à considérer plus attentivement les objets qui emplissaient la pièce; mais les murs nus et les fenêtres sans rideaux ne révélaient point la présence d'une maîtresse de maison soigneuse; les visages flétris de ces pitoyables créatures dont l'une vint s'asseoir presque sous son nez et l'examiner aussi tranquillement qu'une tâche sur un vêtement, tout cela ne lui laissa point douter qu'il venait d'entrer dans le repaire infâme où élit domicile la triste débauche qu'enfantent la civilisation de clinquant et d'effroyable entassement humain de la capitale. Ce repaire où l'homme, en sacrilège, a etouffé et voué à la risée tout ce qu'il y a de pur et de sain pour faire l'ornement de la vie, où la femme, cette beauté du monde, ce couronnement de la création, s'est métamorphosée en un être étrange et ambigu, où elle a dépouillé avec la pureté de l'âme toute féminité et assumé les allures et les impudences du mâle, et cessé d'être cette fragile créature si belle et si différente de nous. Piskariov la considérait des pieds à la tête, plein de stupeur, comme s'il avait voulu s'assurer encore que c'était bien celle qui l'vait ensorcelé et entraîné dans son sillage sur la Perspective Nevski. Mais elle était devant lui toujours aussi belle; sa cheveulure avait bien la même splendeur, ses yeux toujours le même éclat céleste. Elle était toute jeune, elle n'avait guère que dix-sept ans; il était visible que l'immonde débauche ne l'avait saisie que depuis peu et n'avait pas encore flétri ses joues, qui étaient fraîches et légèrement nuancées d'un délicat incarnat... Elle était belle.

When I saw them in '86 they added "Love Song" to the set and cranked up the wah-motorik factor in it but it was too little too late

Anyway so I went home and played the real "Changeling" and realised that it sounds a lot like Tiefschwarz! "Thirty Frames A Second" too, though to a lesser extent.

To be more specific about "Changeling", it sounds like what the Tiefschwarz remix of The Rapture's "Sister Saviour" should have been (I should cross-reference this post to an electro-house thread so that Ronan would have to track it down). I'd love to hear a DJ play it in a set.

But even in the midst of all this, my favourite album remains

http://www.earthwaverecords.com/Pictures/AlbumImg/S/A0042107.jpg

Every few years I simply must hear "East At Easter", or "Waterfront" or "C Moon Cry Like A Baby" (that one has especially been vexing my brain over the last few weeks from time to time for no apparent reason - also remember Kirsty MacColl sang on it). And yes the first song I heard from that album was "Up On The Catwalk" and that was when I was basically a musical virgin because that song was on one of the first tapes I ever made off of college radio - the first time I realized that the likes of Echo & The Bunnymen and The Smiths even existed. Some people don't like the production on Sparkle In The Rain, but it never bothered me. Remember: Kirsty MacColl was married to him and he produced U2's "War": Steve Lillywhite.

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.