Simple Minds - pretty cool IMO.

[Smokeandsteam]

Looking for a Simple Minds thread and landed on this one.

Unlike a lot of the previous posters on this thread, I thought early Simple Minds were top drawer, and that's why I'm intrigued about this project featuring three of the early members of the band - and who don't happen to be Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill.

It looks like a mixture of new music and settling old scores:

I’m also glad to see a thread.

Some of the comments reveal a gibbering ignorance.

New Gold Dream is one of the best and most important albums of the 80’s.

More positively, there does seem to be a rise of projects, books, interviews, writing and reappraisal of the early period of the band.

Like you, I’m intrigued by this project. Some new music would be good but their role and contribution to the band is also hugely overlooked.

 

[kalidarkone]

I have only ever liked one of their songs - Themes for great Cities- pure musical genius. But have not been able to like anything else by them.

 

[rubbershoes]

I have only ever liked one of their songs - Themes for great Cities- pure musical genius. But have not been able to like anything else by them.

Yeah, that one's superb. Maybe because there's no singing in it

 

[Hollis]

Empires and Dance is a great album - all the stuff up to New Gold Dream. I caught them just as they were transforming into bland 80s stadium rockers..

Didn't realise Mick MacNeil was pissed off with Jim Kerr as well!

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Empires and Dance is a great album - all the stuff up to New Gold Dream. I caught them just as they were transforming into bland 80s stadium rockers..

similar-ish.

i got in to music about 1982, think 'glittering prize' was the first proper record i bought.

then discovered good stuff from before that, but have found everything since a bit of a disappointment. a few other bands / artists went the same sort of way in the 80s.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Empires and Dance is a great album - all the stuff up to New Gold Dream. I caught them just as they were transforming into bland 80s stadium rockers..

New Gold Dream is an excellent song.

I have a soft spot for a couple of the cheesy 80s hits beyond that, but draw the line at street fighting years.

Somebody, from the first LP was my favourite track of theirs for several years.

 

[oryx]

I’m also glad to see a thread.

Some of the comments reveal a gibbering ignorance.

New Gold Dream is one of the best and most important albums of the 80’s.

More positively, there does seem to be a rise of projects, books, interviews, writing and reappraisal of the early period of the band.

Like you, I’m intrigued by this project. Some new music would be good but their role and contribution to the band is also hugely overlooked.

I've been playing it a bit recently. It's an excellent album, kind of synthy and dreamy.

The title track is my current earworm.

Realising it's over forty years old was a bit of a bummer, though.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Realising it's over forty years old was a bit of a bummer, though.

 

[krtek a houby]

Difficult reading a lot of the thread, but big yes to their early stuff. And feck it, some of the stadium stuff is alright too.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Difficult reading a lot of the thread, but big yes to their early stuff. And feck it, some of the stadium stuff is alright too.

Absolutely. I didn't go mad for any of it at the time, but it's suck with me and I am always mildly delighted when a Simple Minds track randomly pops up on my MP3 shuffle.

I watched a bit of the documentary on Youtube, I didn't know it was a recent film (so a naughty upload) and it was taken down before I could finish it. I believe it is coming to BBCi this month, so I am looking forward to that.
I love the old story of them just completing 'Life in a day' and then hearing 'Unknown Pleasures' and realising they were already old hat. . . Roxy Music / Elo to New Wave Punk.

Simple Minds have some great songs, but they also have an incredible ability to create some music that I simply can't remember. My mind can't latch on. I can't hold any memory of the songs. Not all of them, I remember the 'hits', but almost everything from the first LP (bar two songs) to New Gold Dream. And Ghostdancing. I have listened to it over and over for the last 40 years on that LP but I can't remember it at all. EVERY SINGLE TIME it comes on my MP3 player I think 'What's this? Sounds a bit like Simple Minds'.

 

[krtek a houby]

Absolutely. I didn't go mad for any of it at the time, but it's suck with me and I am always mildly delighted when a Simple Minds track randomly pops up on my MP3 shuffle.

I watched a bit of the documentary on Youtube, I didn't know it was a recent film (so a naughty upload) and it was taken down before I could finish it. I believe it is coming to BBCi this month, so I am looking forward to that.
I love the old story of them just completing 'Life in a day' and then hearing 'Unknown Pleasures' and realising they were already old hat. . . Roxy Music / Elo to New Wave Punk.

Simple Minds have some great songs, but they also have an incredible ability to create some music that I simply can't remember. My mind can't latch on. I can't hold any memory of the songs. Not all of them, I remember the 'hits', but almost everything from the first LP (bar two songs) to New Gold Dream. And Ghostdancing. I have listened to it over and over for the last 40 years on that LP but I can't remember it at all. EVERY SINGLE TIME it comes on my MP3 player I think 'What's this? Sounds a bit like Simple Minds'.

Yeah, get that. Most albums by any artist I get these days is like a new listening every time I put it on. But old stuff that I listened to from teens to thirties more or less stayed with me.

I still vividly recall seeing them live 38 years ago and the crowd going wild.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Yeah, get that. Most albums by any artist I get these days is like a new listening every time I put it on. But old stuff that I listened to from teens to thirties more or less stayed with me.

I still vividly recall seeing them live 38 years ago and the crowd going wild.

I am not a massive fan of the mega concert polished rock period, but can't help thinking it's criminal that the low rent 80s kerr copy cat Bongo and his band still get to enjoy world wide stadium success.

 

[krtek a houby]

I am not a massive fan of the mega concert polished rock period, but can't help thinking it's criminal that the low rent 80s kerr copy cat Bongo and his band still get to enjoy world wide stadium success.

If you mean U2, I believe they formed a year or two before Simple Minds?

I don't really listen to their output since Passengers, tbh. Felt that was their last true burst of creativity.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

If you mean U2, I believe they formed a year or two before Simple Minds?

They slipped into the stadium style after paying close attention to Simple Minds. . . they have said as much themselves.

I don't really listen to their output since Passengers, tbh. Felt that was their last true burst of creativity.

I don't even know what passengers is. I did buy the Pride single though.

 

[krtek a houby]

They slipped into the stadium style after paying close attention to Simple Minds. . . they have said as much themselves.

I don't even know what passengers is. I did buy the Pride single though.

Dublin in the mid 80s was well divided on the band. On the pirates every second request was either U2 or Simple Minds.

Half my mates loved the band, the others despised them.

Totally get the hate, then and now but it's a bit boring, Tbh. Don't really care whether or not which band is respected... it's such a blokey cliché.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Totally get the hate, then and now but it's a bit boring, Tbh. Don't really care whether or not which band is respected... it's such a blokey cliché.

I had no feelings one way or another at the time.
I just think that now, in retrospect, that I can see the back catalogue of Simple Minds and their craft and compare that to U2 (who as you say were of equal footing back in the 80s) it seems a little unfair that U2 get to be the bigger band. If I listen back to U2 I don't feel the music stood the test of time. . . maybe in the same way that I think Baltiora's Tarzan Boy still has 'something' but Nu Shooz 'Baby I can't wait' doesn't have that stand out 'zing' that it once had.

 

[krtek a houby]

I had no feelings one way or another at the time.
I just think that now, in retrospect, that I can see the back catalogue of Simple Minds and their craft and compare that to U2 (who as you say were of equal footing back in the 80s) it seems a little unfair that U2 get to be the bigger band. If I listen back to U2 I don't feel the music stood the test of time. . . maybe in the same way that I think Baltiora's Tarzan Boy still has 'something' but Nu Shooz 'Baby I can't wait' doesn't have that stand out 'zing' that it once had.

Nu Shooz!

Still zings, imho.

 

[The39thStep]

Really liked their first five albums up to Sister Feelings Call and thought New Gold Dream was so and so but the bloated stadium rock stuff was a terrible let down and put them in the U2 category I'm afraid. Pity because it would have been interesting to see where they would have ended up if they had progressed the post-punk, Eno/Morodor/Kratwerk/Teutonic synth, dancing bass trajectory.

 

[Hollis]

God yes - I tried listening to Belfast Child the other day- I remember thinking it was awful at the time.. I think I managed less than a minute 35 years later.

Themes for Great Cities on the other hand - what a track!