I may have taken too much Gin, but I can’t help but feel that Simply Red are unfairly hated. Now, to be clear, this is not a band that I play on a regular basis and I appreciate that Mick Hucknall is a bit of a bell-end, but ‘Stars’, ‘Something Got Me Started’, ‘For Your Babies’, ‘A New Flame’ etc are lovely stuff – dare I go as far as suggest they’re pop classics? I think I just did.
If I were thinking more clearly I could shelter others under the ‘unfairly hated because they’re British’ umbrella, but I’ll leave that to you fine people. Ooh! Del Amitri, – not hated, but under appreciated for the same reason perhaps? Any more?
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Junior Wells says
Are you asking Brits or the rest of us?
As an Aussie I don’t think there is antipathy towards Brit band , even when they are draped in union jacks. SR can be a bit too syrupy at times but a great band, fine singer and good tastes in music. As you say MH can be a bit of a hell end and that is probably the trigger for narkiness.
Sitheref2409 says
Or as other call it, Bonosyndrome
Pizon-bros says
I would say, EVEN if they are British. There are some groups that keep the same gimmicks, never renew themselves. With Hucknall or with the cranberries, first there was the surprise, then the “état de grâce”, a short one, then boredom. The redhead bloke who plays guitar as on a teenager’s birthday party (I didn’t catch his name, sheridan or something) took a shortcut, so I suppose that Hucknall must feel lucky.
bricameron says
I could do without his flowing robes but yes ‘Stars’ is a very British pop song.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Once I calmed down after their shameless purloining and overshadowing of the original, brilliant version of Money’s Too Tight, I had to admit that he’s got a fantastic set of pipes and the band can really cut it. Can’t say I’ve invested though; bit too supper club for my tastes.
duco01 says
As far as I understand it, Mick Hucknell was one of the people who founded and funded Blood and Fire Records (1994-2006), the greatest reggae reissue label in the history of the known universe.
For that alone, he gets a massive thumbs-up and thanks from me.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Indeed. Guaranteed great if it’s on that label.
Paul Wad says
I think the reasons he doesn’t get his due plaudits on here are because he’s a bit of an arse and also because he was commercially successful, and there’s nothing music snobs dislike more than being associated with an artist who is popular with yer average person on the street, particularly if that person is predominently female! In reality, he should be right up there with people like Harry Nilsson when we talk about the greatest singers.
Personally, until he got to the record with Fairground on it I think there’s much to admire in all his previous albums, especially the first one and Stars. Men and Women is the weaker of the first four, but I just love Suffer from that album (and there’s an easy joke for somebody to make!). My other favourite is his version of Drowning In My Own Tears, which was on the b-side of Holding Back The Years I think. And I particularly liked the fact that he filmed the video for the latter in Whitby, a place I know well because as a kid I spent every day of my school holidays at my Nan’s, just down the road in Robin Hood’s Bay.
But to answer your question, I don’t think his Britishness has much to do with it. It’s more his popularity amongst the masses and his nobbish behaviour that does for him. But I like his (earlier) music nonetheless.
Moose the Mooche says
Is that Drown in My Own Tears as in Ray Charles?
No faulting his taste if nothing else.
Leicester Bangs says
I don’t think it’s about him being popular per se, more about the make-up of his constituency. Some of the music might have been good, but the kind of people who liked Simply Red were dickheads, and who wants to keep that kind of company?
Bingo Little says
They were the Jamiroquai of the 80s.
Moose the Mooche says
Ouch!
Tony Japanese says
Simply Red are one of the bands her and I disagree on. She can’t stand them and their ‘saccharine songs’, whereas I think they’re brilliant*. The nail tends to have been hit on the head multiple times already though, it’s not the music that people don’t like, it’s Mick.
*Well, some of them.
Junior Wells says
Any love for his Bobby Bland tribute album?
Moose the Mooche says
I love the fact that he did it, even though I haven’t heard it. A fine example of someone using their position to do, er, the right thing. BB is very underrated.
Gary says
He did it without even hearing it? How is that even possible?
Like Beethoven!
(The bloke, not the dog.)
Moose the Mooche says
Beethoven laid his head on his piano to feel the vibrations. If MH did that someone would smash the lid down on his head.
Tony Japanese says
Is that what Jonny Greenwood was doing at Glastonbury? Rock ‘n’ Roll gives you bad posture.
retropath2 says
Yes, a fair amount, marred only by the fact that the version of Stormy Monday is the worst version of the very many covers of this song (by others) that I have.
Moose the Mooche says
The first page of any Learn Yerself The Joanna book is all about the posture. Sit up straight. Forearms at right-angles to the body. No farting..and so on.
Gary says
Hey, Moose, you edited your post above so that my previously hilarious joke now looks suspiciously like the senseless ramblings of a simpleton! I admire you even more now.
Moose the Mooche says
Don’t tell me – you preferred the early demo, before it got over produced ☺
bricameron says
Popular misconception about Beethoven. Of course he could hear. He heard in his head. Just like you can!
Gary says
Great, very promising debut, but nothing I heard after it inspired me to buy another album (see also: UB40, The Pretenders, Dire Straits).
Leicester Bangs says
He founded Blood and Fire records, so he’s not all bad.
duco01 says
Ahem …. may I direct m’learned friend to my comment above, having regard to the aforementioned Blood and Fire Records.
Leicester Bangs says
Sorry duco01, but you’re on mute. You cost me too much.
Moose the Mooche says
That was a fantastic label. I didn’t know the Huck was behind it. Respect!
Pizon-bros says
The “Voltaire effect” as I call it. You believe you will be revered for something and posterity choose something else.
duco01 says
Why the Voltaire effect, Pizon? Did Voltaire not think that he’d be revered for Candide? That’s a cracking little book. “Il faut cultiver notre jardin” – that’s a sentiment we can all get behind, I think.
Moose the Mooche says
Pah! Not as good as Heaven 17.
ganglesprocket says
Holding Back The Years is a great song.
I quite like The Right Thing even if the thought of Hucknall thinking that the time is “sexily right” gives me the dry boak.
Apart from that, it’s a sort of aural soup fronted by an undeniably good singer which just made no real impression on me. Hucknall being such an arse in his heyday probably provoked that actual hatred, otherwise they’d just be The Lighthouse Family or something like that.
But yes, props for Blood And Fire, I spent a fortune on those CDs unaware it was a Hucknall project…
slotbadger says
Was going to post pretty much the same comment! HBTY is sublime.
duco01 says
Holding Back the Years is indeed extremely well sung.
But … I dunno … I’m not too keen on those two lines where he rhymes ‘pater’ with ‘mater.’
Black Celebration says
He can certainly sing but he’s not my cup of tea at all. However -is he an arse because we want him to be an arse? I only say this because as an avid reader of the music press 79-99 ish, I can’t call to mind anything he’s done or said that was *that* bad. Am I forgetting something?
kingtim says
I think the music press took against him because he was unashamedly glorying in some aspects of the pop star lifestyle including a lot of shagging, if I may be blunt. He’s no-one’s idea of a classically handsome man and some scribes took exception, possibly reflecting on their own looks and success with the opposite sex.
Musically, there’s a lot I like on the first three albums. Live, he has an excellent voice, last saw them on the ‘farewell tour’ in 2010, when he was doing that extending the microphone thing away from his mouth and keeping the same volume and pitch. How does that work?
Twang says
It’s called working the mic. The level of the mic is set quite high. Then if you have it closer to your mouth it creates a “proximity effect” which makes it sound all intimate. Then if you hit loud notes which would overload the mic you move it further away so the signal level stays the same. “Proper” singers do it.
kingtim says
Thanks Mr Twang, appreciated.
Moose the Mooche says
Some are born arses. Some achieve arseness. Some have arseness thrust upon them.
Gatz says
He always seems to be in on the joke – sharing the laugh when Viz took the Mick (ho ho) in Billybthe Fish and so On. One or two singles aside, I like him as a singer but never cared for the material. He earns his place on the national landscape for the voice, being pro European ebpven when there wasn’t a battle particularly being fought, and services to ginger activism.
Wheldrake says
Yes the man can sing. Yes he’d produced a handful of stellar pop songs. But his downfall was embracing the “showbiz” lifestyle with gusto, which led to him being portrayed as a bit of an arse and a rampant swordsman.
Not really my bag, but he’s made his millions so fair play to the man.
Hamlet says
At their best? Great soul-pop: something Got Me Started, A New Flame, Holding Back the Years…
At their worst? Wine bar band.
Leedsboy says
I really struggle with Simply Red. Some of it is the Mick Hucknall is an arse aspect. Most of it is that the music is largely insipid, polished, shiny soul pop which always fails to make an impression on me. It’s not terrible but it is boring (to me).
deramdaze says
Prosecution: Supports Man. U.
Defence: Not the Lighthouse Family.
Though, it has to be said, “not the Lighthouse Family” grants a degree of grudging regard for Mussolini.
Dave Ross says
I love Simply Red, I’m indifferent towards Mr Hucknall as a person but that wouldn’t influence how I feel about his music. His voice is a given, one hell of a tool (see what I did there) but there’s always a moment in his songs I can only describe as “lift-off” which sets the pulse racing and gets the hairs on the neck up. There must be a musical term for it, whatever it is it works for me.
Not sure about the British thing, aren’t The Beatles British?
Nice Del Amitri shout there too roundly ignored by everyone but that’s probably my fault…..
Lemonhope says
I think what I was trying to say with regard to the British thing, is that if they were, say, American they would have received more love. Hate was probably the wrong word.
As mentioned below, The Style Council are a good example – [however thinking about it, the other common denominator for both Simply Red and TSC is that both singers were bell-ends]
Markg says
Going back to the original statement could I suggest The Style Council as a band who tend to be looked down upon due to fashion and video choices rather than looking at the many good tracks they produced,albeit not many in the later years…?
Markg says
SteveT says
Sorry but a pile of shite. Had the misfortune to see them live once and complete crap until Hucknall came back on stage with just his guitar and sang Holding back the years.
MOR funk for people who can’t handle the real stuff.
Junior Wells says
but I like them and I love hard core funk
deramdaze says
Didn’t Radio 1 listeners vote “Stars” no. 1 album of all time in about 1992?
OK, I know it was the flavour of the day, but even with flavours of the day you kinda knew that those that liked such things would still have a regard for “The Joshua Tree” or “Automatic For The People” years down the line, but “Stars”?
Even in 1991/1992 its shelf-life appeared to be substantially less than a Greek yoghurt.
I once knew someone who had a copy – I don’t know them anymore, obviously.
Can’t move for the b*ggers in local charity shops, where I think about 99% of copies sold have taken up permanent residence.
Might start signing them “With love, Mick Hucknell, see you in Stockport, xxx ” for a giggle.
Yes, there’s still a week until the cricket, I’ll start doing that tomorrow.
Alias says
I’m indifferent about them, but used to dislike them because:
1) A friend of mine’s band were due to support Working Week on their UK tour including a gig at Hammersmith Odeon. Their slot was bought by Simply Red’s record label, so they missed out which was a massive disappointment.
2) They had a hit with an inferior version of the Valentine Brothers classic Money’s Too Tight To Mention when the Valentine Brothers didn’t.
3) I was nagged into seeing them live by a work colleague who had a spare ticket. I got told off twice for talking. To someone who spent their formative years at loud rock gigs, this was a complete no no and for me reflected on the band just as much as it did on the audience.
Subsequently they did some good songs and I saw them again miming in front of the Switzerland supporters at the opening match of Euro 96. The Swiss fans clapped along in unison, and completely off the beat.
Tiggerlion says
I once spent the day in Mick Hucknall’s company. At least, it felt that way. We browsed the afternoon away in Virgin Records, Manchester. He bought at least twenty CDs. I couldn’t quite make out which ones, although I squinted hard. I think I bought one CD. That evening, there he was again, at a Curtis Mayfield concert. I walked past him and we exchanged hellos, recognising each other from earlier on. Curtis was superb.
As for The Valentine Brothers, Simply Red recorded their version three years after the original. Those Brothers were very grateful for the royalties and their single picked up some belated sales of its own as a result.
His reputation as a ladies man was always conducted with irony. Peter Crouch was once asked what he would be if he wasn’t a footballer and he said, “a virgin”. Mick was much the same. He was acutely aware that his looks needed his success to be attractive and was self-deprecatingly humorous about it all.
I don’t own a single Simply Red record but I don’t begrudge Mick his success and I’m eternally grateful for Blood & Fire.
Vulpes Vulpes says
This. Up.
retropath2 says
Was he any good with the Faces? Serious question.
SteveT says
You must be joking @retropath2 – he has neither the charisma nor the rock and roll personal to lead a band like the Faces.
Junior Wells says
Judge for yourself. My reaction watching the phone clips was -what a prick Rod was for waiting til 2015 to relent.
retropath2 says
Inaudible, then. Who was the 2nd guitar lurking in the background? And I guess from all his lugubrious appearances on rock docs, one Glen Matlock on bass?
Sort of makes a mockery of Hucknalls supposed and avowed rejection of rock in earlier days
MC Escher says
No, they are far too inauthentic for me. They’ve had hits and enverything.
Lemonhope says
I remember reading an interview with Hucknall years ago where he said that if he woke up one morning and decided to go to Brazil he could just jump on a plane and go – I think a lot of people took against him for statements like that, including myself, however with hindsight I now think that sounds like a splendid thing to be able to do