You say then how come out of love, is all this cruelty arising?
April 4, 2018 9:09 PM   Subscribe

It sort of started with 1985's song Don't You (Forget About Me), a stadium-sized surprise US hit for Scottish band Simple Minds. They decided on Jimmy Iovine's big sound and Robin Clark's powerful vocals for their follow-up album 1985's Once Upon A Time [full album ~40m], and delivered an album that I feel should be included in the Every Track Is Perfect Club. Side A: Once Upon A Time, All The Things She Said, Ghost Dancing, Alive And Kicking [video] posted by hippybear (19 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
Such a good album!
posted by kerf at 10:33 PM on April 4, 2018


Everywhere, for a while.
posted by rhizome at 12:48 AM on April 5, 2018


Kind of U2 copyists in that period.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 1:09 AM on April 5, 2018


Kind of U2 copyists in that period.
From their beginnings - as Johnny and the Self Abusers - Simple Minds have rather different beginnings than U2. For example contrast "Once Upon A Time" with 1981's "Sister Feelings Call" - at that time they were as much as synth band as anything else - but always about big soundscapes, I think.
posted by rongorongo at 2:35 AM on April 5, 2018 [4 favorites]


Carnival (Shelter in a Suitcase)
And full album, New Gold Dream

These guys were great, and then they became American famous via "The Breakfast Club"
posted by chavenet at 3:27 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]


My Simple Minds Go To Albums are Sons and Fascination, Sister Feelings Call and New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84. SO. GOOD. If you haven't heard them, please do yourself a favor and listen to the links above.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 3:38 AM on April 5, 2018 [6 favorites]


7
posted by the quidnunc kid at 4:45 AM on April 5, 2018 [3 favorites]


(1980: I Travel - another indication of where Simple Minds started off, in an era when they could keep Jim Kerr a little quieter. Synth music back then was generally a more avant garde; less poppy. The idea of synth music that would be fun to dance to - was still years off. This sounds like a track that could have been written last week.)
posted by rongorongo at 5:46 AM on April 5, 2018 [3 favorites]


As someone who was a huge fan of Sons and Fascination the obsession some people have with late Simple Minds feels so sad. To me they are one of those bands that got progressively worse while getting more popular. Kind of like New Order.
posted by srboisvert at 5:53 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]


always about big soundscapes, I think.

Which, to me, peaked with the album before this one, Sparkle In The Rain. The perfect blend of energy and bombast while still being unique. As much as I love New Gold Dream, it's more of an ethereal, contemplative record than most of their other work. In a better world Sparkle would have been the American breakout album, followed by New Gold Dream as a change of mood, and then Don't You and Once Upon A Time would have had a different approach in production. Because, yeah, the songs are good but the production definitely sounds like they're chasing that second Big Hit by following a formula.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:30 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]


The U2 comparison is apt, though. I've always thought that if things had broken a little bit differently, Simple Minds could have become the classic stadium rockers carrying through to today and U2 could have been the also-ran.

Once Upon a Time , was a breakthrough in the US by a band that had been building in the UK for a couple of albums, very much like The Joshua Tree. Both bands had their first big, international hit in conjunction with those albums and several strong followups, after lurking around in the #10-#40 range in Britain (and nowhere in the US) for a half-dozen singles.

The difference between then, I think, was the Simple Minds took four years to follow up with the flop Street Fighting Years, while U2 hit hard 18 months after Joshua Tree with the single-heavy Rattle and Hum -- though even there they had 4 1/2 years between JT and their next "real" album. Both bands were obviously interested in becoming stadium bands too, with a change in sound reflecting it on the long-delayed followups. But Simple Minds' shift was kind of cringe-worthy while U2's produced some stone-cold classics before becoming dinosaurs.

In short, U2 > Simple Minds, but not nearly as much as most might think.
posted by Quindar Beep at 6:49 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]


Just this week my Spotify Discover list brought up "Theme For Great Cities" (again, from Sons and Fascination). Really great instrumental track and one incredibly tight band.

Was U2 this good in 1981?
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:01 AM on April 5, 2018


Still finding their feet, I'd say. October was their album in the Fall of '81 and it's pretty weak (IMO).
posted by Quindar Beep at 7:32 AM on April 5, 2018


Alive and Kicking is a fantastic song.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:52 AM on April 5, 2018 [4 favorites]


Live in the City of Light has been one of my favorites for years.
posted by lagomorphius at 10:51 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]


Just to note: their recent AcousticLive tour came to town - and it was totally not unplugged and pretty damn glorious. 81 - 82 - 83 - 84!
posted by progosk at 11:55 AM on April 5, 2018


Kind of U2 copyists in that period.

1980: I Travel yt - another indication of where Simple Minds started off, in an era when they could keep Jim Kerr a little quieter.


I saw them on the Once Upon A Time a tour, and yeah, they just weren't the same outfit that first hooked me back in 1981. The music must change and all that, but ... well, whatever, I guess I just wasn't in the target audience anymore.

The weird thing is, I also caught the Sparkle in the Rain tour, just one year earlier, and I quite liked where the changes were taken them then. Which, as this take on 1981's The American makes clear, was someplace big and wild ...
posted by philip-random at 12:57 PM on April 5, 2018


I absolutely adore this album to pieces, I used to have a copy on a C90 tape with the Hooters, "Nervous Night" on the other side. My go to albums when I need a pick me up.

I must be the odd person that loved everything they did before it and even a couple of the albums that followed. They certainly never stuck with a single sound for very long.
posted by inthe80s at 4:30 PM on April 5, 2018


Article describing the circumstances around the recording of Simple Minds' 1982 album "New Gold Dream" - is interesting in terms of pinpointing where the band's influences came from - and what made them change direction: an early spell of hitching around Europe in the 70s - maybe hearing Kraftwerk, lots of artistic cross fertilization with other bands from the era (sharing a London hotel with ABC and The Teardrop Explodes) - but also a mountain of debt that made a move towards greater commercial success really important.
posted by rongorongo at 7:07 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


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