Great Minds

My early to mid teens were very much ‘wilderness years’ in terms of my music taste development. I floated and frittered between artists and genres without fully committing to anything in particular. I may have bought a lot of records by the same artists – Frankie, Billy Joel, Queen, Madonna – but I never really had a ‘favourite band’, one that I could truly immerse myself in. Not until Francis Bell introduced me to Simple Minds in 1985, anyway.

‘Belly’ (as he was imaginatively known) was my snooker doubles partner. He also introduced me to a lot of music. Depeche Mode was one of his favourite bands; Soft Cell was another, and so were Simple Minds. I was 14 when Alive & Kicking came out and there was something about it that just grabbed me. I knew little about the band’s past and just dived headlong into this stadium rock masterpiece and its parent album ‘Once Upon A Time’. Of course, I soon began to investigate the band’s back catalogue – and this is where the real fun started.

It took Simple Minds a number of years to reach their pinnacle of commercial success, and a dramatic change of musical style too. I noticed this when I bought ‘Celebration’, a mid-priced compilation LP of songs from their first three albums. Nothing on that record sounded even remotely like Alive & Kicking – but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It contained one particular song that blew everything on ‘Once Upon A Time’ out of the water.

I Travel was the opening track on Simple Minds’ third album ‘Empires And Dance’ from 1980. It also opened side two of ‘Celebration’. On first listen, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Essentially, I Travel was hugely influenced by the burgeoning European dance music scene, its frenzied electronic backing accentuated by Charie Burchill’s effects-laden post-punk guitars and a yelping vocal from Jim Kerr (before his bombastic, fist-pumping, stadium-rock days). It’s hard to imagine now, but this song failed to chart on three separate occasions. Today it would be an instant classic. In fact, 33 years on, it’s clear I Travel remains hugely influential, as indeed does the whole ‘Empires And Dance’ album. You only have to listen to the likes of Alt-J, Hot Chip, Metronomy, CHVRCHES and numerous other current hipster favourites to see how lasting that amazing record is (if only those bands sounded nearly half as good). Yet incredibly the band had to persuade their reluctant record company to release it, and even when they did, it was only in small quantities.

For perhaps the first time I became aware of how credible artists evolve. Simple Minds formed from the ashes of punk band Johnny and the Self Abusers. Their first album, ‘Life In A Day’ (1979), was to all intents and purposes, a skewed New Wave record, taking the likes of Public Image Limited and Wire as reference points. Its follow-up was the highly experimental electronic odyssey ‘Real To Reel Cacophony’ (also 1979), a strange, disjointed effort for sure, but it certainly paved the way for the genius that was to come (the track Premonition is also one of my top 3 Simple Minds tracks). ‘Empires And Dance’ was, and still is, a brilliant, brilliant record. As a whole it displays qualities that placed it way ahead of many of their contemporaries even if it wasn’t appreciated at the time. Its minimalist approach, for instance, is heard in so many records released today. Aside from I Travel, there are other individual moments of astonishing quality. Thirty Frames A Second is begging for a hundred remixers to get their grubby mitts on it and turn it into a dancefloor filler, though it is its spiky minimalism that gives it a unique appeal; and This Fear Of Gods just bubbles and pops with fitful excitement throughout its seven glorious minutes. 

Other than the record company’s stance, one of the reasons why ‘Empires And Dance’ may not have achieved the commercial recognition it undoubtedly deserved is the perceived lack of ‘proper songs’ that radio could play (though quite why I Travel wasn’t absolutely massive remains a mystery). The next Simple Minds records saw a gradual shift towards a more commercially accessible sound. The double offering of ‘Sons And Fascination’ and ‘Sister Feelings Call’ from 1981 contained some great songs, most notably the single Love Song and the awesome oft-sampled instrumental Theme For Great Cities (that continues to inspire all sorts of artists years afterwards[1]). Then the synth-laden ‘New Gold Dream’ (1982) album revealed an overtly pop side to the band and produced their first bonafide smash hit Promised You A Miracle. Clearly a band has to evolve, not to only remain relevant, but also to increase its chances of success. Going back through Simple Minds’ back catalogue made me realise this.

Sadly, the direction they took next left many fans cold. ‘Sparkle In The Rain’ cranked up the volume somewhat and the intriguing electronics of ‘Empires And Dance’ had given way completely to a new, big rock sound that gave the band a firm foothold in the States. ‘Once Upon A Time’ was a highly-polished work of stadium-filling pomposity, and ‘Street Fighting Years’ confirmed Simple Minds had banished once and for all any ambition of creating lasting, original music. Instead, they just wanted to sound like U2 and Big Country, play Live Aid and save the world. I discovered them through Alive & Kicking and continued to follow them for a couple more years, but it is that early period of the band that I, and many fans, turn to nowadays.

Simple Minds have revisited that early electronic style on recent albums and admit themselves that they took their eyes off the ball. They became hugely successful around the world during the mid-80s but lost much of the critical acclaim and respect they had garnered over the preceding years. The fact that today’s young upstarts frequently turn to the likes of ‘Empires And Dance’ and ‘Real To Reel Cacophony’ for inspiration is a sign that success and fame do not always equal reverence.
 
Within a couple of years, I would become an ‘indie kid’ who would sneer at those who dared to admit to liking such commercial sell-outs as Simple Minds.  Unless, of course, it was the early stuff that nobody knew about, in which case it was great!

Soundtrack:

• Premonition – Simple Minds (from ‘Real to Reel Cacophony’)
• I Travel - Simple Minds (from 'Empires and Dance')
• Theme For Great Cities - Simple Minds (from 'Sister Feelings Call')

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[1] Check out Radiohead’s Where I End And You Begin from ‘Hail To The Thief’ as a comparison.