I love when they string words in titles as if they have no idea how functional English works!
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 3 June 2021 22:09 (two years ago) link
“Wonderful In Young Life” is good! Perhaps it’s just less surprising to me than the other material (perhaps precisely because it is Magazine meets Roxy Music), and coming at the end doesn’t help.
Whereas “70 Cities as Love Brings the Fall” is like... Remain in Light meets Abacab?
― Tim F, Thursday, 3 June 2021 22:13 (two years ago) link
also electronic cow moos
― building a hole (NickB), Thursday, 3 June 2021 22:18 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK-thT2IaaA
slightly later era but have just been watching this tv performance from 1982. version of 'new gold dream' on this is great (starts at 11:05), especially the last couple of minutes - synths just a teeny bit too high in the mix and sounding like a warning of imminent alien invasion, guitar caught up in a whirlpool of delay, bass like a rushing train. it's like some sort of new romantic hawkwind, ominous and psychedelic and really quite strange. there's a version of 'the american' right afterwards and yeah - charlie is already starting to throw in some of those awful out-to-row-z guitar parts, chorus would desperately like to meet an arena that's up for a few nights out and a bit of a singalong
― building a hole (NickB), Thursday, 3 June 2021 23:48 (two years ago) link
that Hawkwind comparison is so on-point! this kind of IS the space-rock of its time isn't it
― imago, Thursday, 3 June 2021 23:59 (two years ago) link
"League of Nations" is an attempt to do Can with two bass notes plus mumbling.
Their first album Life In a Day basically alternates between pastiches of Roxy Music and Magazine, but not very effectively.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 4 June 2021 01:35 (two years ago) link
yeah the title track is nice but otherwise meh
― brimstead, Friday, 4 June 2021 01:48 (two years ago) link
Really amazing that they went from the quite drab Life in a Day to the holy-fuck-what-is-this brilliance of Reel To Real Cacophany in less than a year. Hard to think of many (any?) glow ups so extreme in such a short time span.
― Tim F, Friday, 4 June 2021 01:55 (two years ago) link
I'd say there's a similar leap in quality between the first two Japan albums, also less than a year apart.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 4 June 2021 03:18 (two years ago) link
big 'mother sky' vibes on this one too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbZSXSICdFE
― building a hole (NickB), Friday, 4 June 2021 06:36 (two years ago) link
The body of work that Simple Minds produced between 1980 and 1984 is absolutely phenomenal. Some of the most exciting rock music to ever come out of the U.K. I wish they’d stopped then and walked away as legends instead of fading into parody
― beamish13, Friday, 4 June 2021 06:38 (two years ago) link
R2RC was a good example of second album syndrome, they went into record with John Leckie with just a few songs, I always used to wonder why it was much cheaper than all the other SM records, then I bought it (around 1985) and shelved it away, love it now, of course.
― Maresn3st, Friday, 4 June 2021 10:32 (two years ago) link
Love SaF/SFC, but can't help feeling that "Theme for Great Cities" is Jim Kerr's best vocal performance.
― Portsmouth Bubblejet, Friday, 4 June 2021 12:22 (two years ago) link
He was fine chanting mystical nonsense, until he caught a bad case of Bono-itis in the mid 80s.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 4 June 2021 14:18 (two years ago) link
Real Life is a pretty decent album, but I can't be doing with anything after that
― mark e. smith-moon (f. hazel), Friday, 4 June 2021 15:15 (two years ago) link
“film theme” from R2RC is dark, sexy, cool as hell. first heard it on a Daniele Baldelli mix
― brimstead, Friday, 4 June 2021 18:32 (two years ago) link
Capital City is my jam, I love that bassline so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hth0iPU29tw
― Maresn3st, Friday, 4 June 2021 18:43 (two years ago) link
<3 the 5x5 box set, that was my full immersion after years of missing out. Because of that I don't think of these albums individually but as part of a whole continuum.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Saturday, 5 June 2021 01:33 (two years ago) link