New Simple Minds album, "Walk Between Worlds", set for release 02/02/2018

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by pghmusiclover, Nov 20, 2017.

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  1. manicpopthrill

    manicpopthrill Forum Resident

    Location:
    ICT, Kansas
    Good News always struck me as a back-to-basics album after the grandiosity of its two predecessors. Still dramatic, but in a good way.
     
  2. TokenGesture

    TokenGesture Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I need to listen to them some more and more closely
     
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  3. Totti is god

    Totti is god Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    I listened new album, and i must say that is first album fromSM I listened 6-7 times in row. And Best SM Lp till 1988

    I saw SM last time 2015 and was ok gig. SM was bigger then U2 1980-1986, I don’t know what happened to them. I think such drop off quality and interest from crowd have only SM and The Cult

    From first league to 4 league. I don’t understand
     
  4. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    They lost important key members and changed musical directions rather abruptly. That's it, probably.
     
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  5. Havoc

    Havoc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Poland
    Exit Brian McGee (genius drummer with repetitive "Kraftwerk" loops), enter Mel Gaynor who was much more improvisational and built for a stadium sound. They're mingling with U2 that summer, Bono says "Use Steve, he's great at capturing that live sound" enter Steve Lillywhite, add in an odd passion to vacate the NGD sound and you have Sparkle in the Rain. Consider the US tour in 84 then 85 where Jimmy Iovine music dominates the airwaves via Springsteen and Mellencamp, Jim and Charlie just have to have that sound for their next album but are having trouble getting Iovine to return a phone call then destiny calls in the form of "that song", suddenly Iovine is listening and we have Once Upon A Time. I think the change is much more organic than the theory offered by those who suspect the band threw in for the almighty $. The band is playing festivals and changing the NGD tracks to sound bigger, SITR definitely has that big sound and Once Upon A Time feels like a natural progression to me. The explanation makes sense.
     
  6. Dil

    Dil Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    In a nutshell. No band has truly survived losing 3 key members who also wrote the toons. LIAD did have CB and JK as the sole composers, but that album was full of simple, poptastic toons apart from Murder Mystery and Pleasantly Disturbed. The creative rhythmic partnership betwixt Forbes and McGee and the utter indispensibity of McNeil laid the foundation for everything. Kerr also had no real input into the actual music compositions, just lyrics. Since SFY, its been a collaborative process with many toons being wholly written by a third party. The gang mentality of SM Mark 1 had gone.

    In so many ways we are actually talking about several different bands under the SM moniker. And the abrupt, radical changes in sound with no clear common imprint or character simply fragmented audiences.

    Given this, I personally choose SM Mark 1 as my Simple Minds. I cannot fathom such an abberation as the second rate straight ahead Amerikan rawkisms of a Bad News from the Next Hell. It's so outside of my own concept of the band that it is another band entirely, as far as I want to be concerned.

    All great bands have a core stylistic character, even if they change direction somewhat. Its what defines them and their essence.
     
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  7. Dil

    Dil Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Except Kerr acknowleges now that there was a strategy and mad rush towards wholesale populism back then which he now regrets. So lets call it organic commercialisation perhaps. His references are almost always .."this is us going back to Empires, Sons, NGD...." Not once have I heard him reference Bad News or SITR or OUAT or any of tbe other post 83 albums.
     
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2018
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  8. sunking101

    sunking101 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Yorkshire, England
    I and a lot of others prefer the stadium years and beyond flavour of Simple Minds...as do the band themselves, or else nobody would buy any new product. Why would they try and appeal to fans who left them decades ago and aren't coming back?
     
  9. Havoc

    Havoc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Poland
    I wasn't aware of that. He always referred to OUAT as the sound they wanted and other artists like TFF, Aztec, OMD...etc. stated they liked the sound of the Springsteen albums of the day. I love OUAT, I love the sound of it. I can do without the extra singer but I was pretty smitten with the record when it came out figured that there was a bigger audience because it was better music............better being that it did have a mass appeal. My wife loves SM but wants nothing to do with the early albums, at least she's honest as opposed to a few people I know who force themselves to like RTRC so they can say they like it. It's abrasive and odd but I was lucky that someone explained the greatness of the stuff like Bowie, TRex, Roxy, Magazine, Talking Heads to me when I was very young so I learned to listen with a much more open mind, identifying the greatness in what many would understandably call "weird". I mean, when I listen to Sex Pistols I think it's a rock album with a pop edge to it but see people cringe when I play it for them as something identifies it as something other than rock or pop for them.

    Admittedly, there was a time when I forced myself to listen to utter crap and try and convince myself that I liked it so I could justify wearing the shirt while on the flip side, rejecting a great pop song because I had issues with the person singing it, I'm a little older and wiser and can admit that a Hanson song sounds just fine. Nothing in SM discog is so offensive to me that I can't like it, some are better than others, some is suspiciously "out of the pattern". How many Bauhaus and L&R fans jumped ship after "So Alive" went to number 1? Why does Steve Kilbey piss on that song? I realize I'm on a tangent but regardless of Jim's take on things now, OUAT seemed like a natural next album after seeing the band in 84 on their own then supporting the Pretenders, I realize the Prince and Pauper look was a questionable choice and that band with the crazy album in the blue cover was all of a sudden dressed to the nines and headlining arena shows only a few years later and it's natural for some to raise an eyebrow. I listened to a lot of interviews with Jim back then and his explanation made sense to me. "Scarecrow" is a great sounding album after all.
     
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  10. TokenGesture

    TokenGesture Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Because fashion.
     
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  11. Dil

    Dil Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Show me the ticket sales and sales, fella. Those words are from Kerr's own mouth not mine. And think about it, which albums since Bad News are actually influenced by the fist thumping stadium rock years? And why tour 5x5?

    There are no all out stadium rock albums since Bad News. Neapolis, OSATS, Cry, Neon Lights, Black and White, Graffiti Soul, Lostboy, Big Music and now WBW are predominantly atmospheric, electronic infused works with a small smattering of rousing big toons.

    Nuffink wrong wiv your choice of SM stylee. Like I said, different bands, different choice.
     
  12. Dil

    Dil Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Lovely post, man. I totally respect your and everybody else's angle. Its Kerr looking back with hindsight. Which is always a wonderful thing innit. He has been saying such tings in print for a while now. Andy has been the biggest influence in going back to go forwards. Oops now he is gone too.
     
  13. Dave 81828384

    Dave 81828384 Unremarkable Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    The term "stadium years" in the context of Simple Minds makes me shudder. :(
     
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  14. morgan1098

    morgan1098 Forum Resident

    This may not be the place for it, but since it's the only active Simple Minds thread I'll ask:

    I picked up a CD copy of the Dancing Barefoot EP today. In beautiful condition, the glossy digipak is perfect along with the CD. The inside flap of the digipak has a little pocket that looks like it's supposed to hold a booklet. But after checking Discogs and other online sources, I can't see that this title ever came with a booklet.

    Does anyone know? Is there supposed to be a booklet/insert with the Dancing Barefoot CD EP? See photo below.

    [​IMG]
     
  15. sunking101

    sunking101 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Yorkshire, England
    I've no idea...but that's such a cool looking CD.
    :love:
     
  16. Stuart S

    Stuart S Back Jack

    Location:
    lv
    I have that one, looks like a mini vinyl. No booklet!
     
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  17. mrbiggs

    mrbiggs Empires and Pants

    To me, listening to tapes of the 1984 Tour Du Monde festival sets (eg. Werchter), it’s obvious where they were going as a band. Jim was extending his range, shouting at the top of his voice, reaching the back of the field, creating that stadium bark. Derek’s busy bass lines starting to sound a bit out of place against Mel’s torrential bass drum on the older material. It sounds great, but is it all a bit much to contain on a record? Mick’s playing out of his skin, the last of the great MacNeil synthscapes before the chorused CP70 piano sound took over (as it did with all aspiring serious rockers in the mid-80s - Gabriel, TFF, Talk Talk...)

    One of the reasons I enjoy the OUAT 5.1 mix is because Mick’s synth washes and Giblin’s bass are up in the mix, particularly on the coda to “Come A Long Way”. Just those last couple of minutes hint at what could’ve been, a much more natural continuum from Sons/NGD... ah well. I don’t blame Jim for being defensive of it over the years. To paraphrase Macca, “it sold”.
     
  18. ian christopher

    ian christopher Argentina (in Spirit)

    Location:
    El Centro
    to say I love MacNeil's playing would be an understatement .. what is he up to these days?
     
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  19. Havoc

    Havoc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Poland
    Wow.....absolutely brilliant statement. For a while I believed the easy explanation that Lillywhite was the start of it all but when I actually thought about it I started to think it started with Gaynor's joining the band full time. Much more soulful, much less repetitive.........that's not a knock on McGee. There's credence to those saying "I liked Simple Minds more when they were German" and he helped drive that terrific period of creativity that spawned those albums, Sons and Fascination being their holy grail in my opinion even though I'd NEVER tell anyone they're wrong for believing NGD is their zenith.

    Enter SITR that was the product of a different approach to music after the festivals you mentioned where they extended every aspect..............and you ask the question I always had on my mind but couldn't articulate: How do you contain that on record? SITR takes a huge hit from many for mixing the bass so low but I actually prefer the recorded versions to many of the live versions for precisely the reason that the bass on those tunes is VERY busy given Mel's different drum style. There is a version of Catwalk that is one of my favorite live tracks that was on the flip side of Alive and Kicking that, while the bass can be heard.............is very subdued in that regard and maybe that's why it works. Even Derek didn't believe the bass was too low and as a bass player, I can tell you that you always want if up front and dominant. As for Come A Long Way, the DVD mix is absolutely brilliant, exposing those synths lost in the mix on the initial mix. Right at the zenith of that outro, you can hear a track that sounds like an alto chorus with some modulation that makes it that much more powerful. I used to tool around with an old Roland Super Jupiter and spent a day taking human voices as the basis and trying to make them into a kind of "Synth Strings" sound and Mick has that worked out very, very well.

    Great, great post sir. I bow many times in your general direction and offer you "the hamster of awesomeness" to recognize the awsomeeness of your post.
     
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  20. Stuart S

    Stuart S Back Jack

    Location:
    lv
    The longer version of "Come A Long Way" on the DVD-A 5.1 (original losless) is simply amazing, on a good system, it just rocks the house down, incredible!

    As for SITR's low bass, well the bass is there, its just at lower rumbling frequencies, unlike NGD where its closer to the midrange and thumpy. You need subs that go way low to really hear SITR's dynamics, otherwise its sounds "bright" and tinny.
     
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  21. mrbiggs

    mrbiggs Empires and Pants

    Thanks man.. I’m guilty of vastly overthinking this stuff so I’m glad to have an outlet in this discussion :)

    I think it’s really interesting that the Derek/Mel rhythm section is held by most as the engine of the ultimate SM lineup - but it only lasted for two tours and one & a half albums (in the 80s)! I really think that legend rests on the New Gold Tour, with Mel as the new boy and Derek at his peak. SITR is just.. different, much more rockist, and as I said, I don’t think the tour that followed worked as well musically once Mel really brought the ‘big drum’ sound out. That’s the key to understanding the musical leap to Don’t You/Alive and Kicking etc in 1985. You barely get Derek on Don’t You, he’s just throbbing away doing root notes somewhere down the bottom of the spectrum. The same guy that came up with the bass line to “Sweat In Bullet” just four years previously!

    Now, no-one (at least to my knowledge) has ever linked Derek’s sacking with a deliberate musical decision, preferring instead the ‘lack-of-commitment’ narrative or further rumours about womanising or other behaviours. But I don’t think it’s as easy as that.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2018
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  22. mrbiggs

    mrbiggs Empires and Pants

    I’m no audiophile kit-wise so always struggled with the SITR 80s CD mastering. With the most recent remaster and a decent pair of AKG cans, I get the bass and it comes alive. It’s completely mental though. Nothing else sounds like it. Not even U2!
     
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  23. Dave 81828384

    Dave 81828384 Unremarkable Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    What a tour that was. :agree:
     
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  24. Dave 81828384

    Dave 81828384 Unremarkable Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    Just to follow up... I saw them in Montreal in May, 1983. Was and is still my favourite show of all time. And I don't just mean Simple Minds' shows. It was in a roller rink of all places. :laugh:
     
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  25. Surly

    Surly Bon Viv-oh-no-he-didn't

    Location:
    Sugar Land, TX
    Same here - no booklet in my copy, either.
     
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