The 1981 Listening Post - Simple Minds - Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call

 Simple Minds - Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call

#455

By Aaron Conte

September 12 1981

Simple Minds

Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call

Genre: early modern new wave

Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5

Aaron’s Rating: 3 out of 5 clubs

Highlights:

In Trance as Mission

70 Cities as Love Brings the Fall

Theme for Great Cities

20th Century Promised Land

Simple Minds find The Cure when Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy while Selling England By the Pound. I think it would have been amazing to get drunk with Jim Kerr, Robert Smith, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel back in 1981. If you have ever wondered what that would be like, just put on this hour and a half record. First of all, it plays through like a concert. Great sequencing. No one can vamp on a riff like Simple Minds.

I'm going to side-step the "forgetting about" them jokes or any crap like that, except to say that, yes, that is how I discovered Simple Minds; by way of The Breakfast Club. After that I went out and found "Sparkle in the Rain" and played it over and over again. That really turned me on to what they could deliver. Unfortunately commercial radio then chose the movie song, and followed up with "Alive and Kicking", "All the Things She Said", and "Sanctify Yourself". Not really my cup of tea or glass of scotch.

This album does mix many ideas that in the end come out sounding great. Long-ish songs (nothing clocks in at less than three and a half minutes) average length four and half minutes, all fly by with gleaming melodies and some great pounding beats. One thing Simple Minds always had going for them was a kick-ass drummer and both Brian McGee who plays on this record and Cherisse Osei who plays with them now are no exception.

This is in many ways a double album. From what I could gather, Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call are two separate albums that were recorded in the same session yet released at the same time (and usually as a double album). How very Scottish.

At times, there are elements of early Cure, Eno, and Gabriel era Genesis. All winning combinations in my book. In fact, I'd venture to say I even heard some Falco/After the Fire keyboards at any given moment. Simple Minds is what Roxy Music would have become if Eno stayed in the band.

This album is a commitment. Like I mentioned, a double album of really great sounds and songs, but you really have to be a seeker I think to give it a go. There are indeed moments of wandering, meandering melodies and sound mix ups, but the beats always come in to hang on them in a way that strikes your ear and keeps you listening. Then there's always Jim Kerr's voice. A very real baritone of youth and wild abandon. In fact, rock record listening aside, what's fun is to go on YouTube and dial up "Scottish vocabulary, accent, culture and slang!" Then put on the record (or records) again and try to figure out what he's talking about.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5k8fqMlPpMFxHUGyfnaRON?si=PpRb-CIOSbeGxQeW29CzWA

The 1980 Listening Post - Simple Minds - Empires and Dance

Simple Minds - Empires and Dance

#358

by Jim Shanman

Simple Minds

Empires and Dance 

Genre: No effing clue

Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Jim’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

10 songs: 2 I could listen to a few times, 3 are over 5 minutes, most are a monotonous dregs. 

The first track, I Travel, took me back to my Capital Records swap meet/New Wave and penny loafers days and was thinking maybe I'm in for a hidden gem treat with a solid groove and vocals. 

The next 2 tracks are forgettable and then This Fear of Gods gives me new hope which the next 6 tracks crushed. Not sure where the band was coming from or aiming at, but you know how when you mix a pallet of colors together you get a brown muck? This is kind of like that but instead of paint it's a mash up up of Spandau Ballet, Adam Ant, Sparks, Devo and Romeo Void, and instead of something magical or mystical or even rhythmic, we get this brown-what-the-hell mess. Jim Kerr sounds as good as usual, but the production is unexceptional and the music is unremarkable, bordering on boring.

https://open.spotify.com/album/2zIkPkN2rO6Ph1nD07f10N?si=QTJQ22A6R5eRbcbf_XcAbw

The 1985 Listening Post - Simple Minds - Once Upon a Time

Simple Minds - Once Upon a Time

#399/1035

October 21 1985

Simple Minds

Once Upon a Time

Genre: Rock

4.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Ghostdancing

Alive and Kicking

Sanctify Yourself

All that experimental stuff of the early days seems to have gone by the wayside as the guys really embrace the radio friendliness of “Don’t You Forget About Me”. 

You know what? 

Works for me.

I dig this. 

Make no mistake, though, it’s in that INXS/U2 wheelhouse of anthemic stadium rock that really began to take hold in this Live Aid/Band Aid era. If you told me that “Sanctify Yourself” was INXS I would have no trouble believing you. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/once-upon-a-time/1440841956

The 1984 Listening Post - Simple Minds - Sparkle in the Rain

Simple Minds - Sparkle in the Rain

#25

February 6 1984

Simple Minds

Sparkle in the Rain

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Waterfront

East at Easter

Oy, this sounds way too much like U2. I like U2, but I don’t need another one. Did they change their sound a bit? I mean, it makes sense, they hired Steve “I produced virtually everything in the 80s” Lillywhite who helped U2 craft their sound and then  they toured with them.

Trouble is, for years you would hear that “Don’t You Forget About Me” was not representative of Simple Minds but this album definitely proves they were heading in that U2/Echo & the Bunnymen/INXS direction. 

Whatever edge they had on Reel to Reel Cacophony and Empires and Dance and New Gold Dream seem to be fading into the distance. Not entirely, though as the Highlights  and some of the deeper cuts prove. 

Ultimately this is the sound of stadium ready synth-rock in search of a stateside radio hit.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sparkle-in-the-rain/978085066