The Breakfast Club “killed” Simple Minds.
Although “that song” existed, it was not on the album Once Upon A Time which is probably the last great Simple Minds album.
New Gold Dream, Sparkle In The Rain, Once Upon A Time – an impressively consistent run.
And who can blame them for trying to break America and Stadiums with the offer of a soundtrack single?
However, what came after is not Simple Minds as I wish to remember them.
After that, they just sort of became OK(ish)
http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-03-28/how-the-breakfast-club-killed-simple-minds
I’ll be frank
Once Upon A Time is a rancid stench hole of a record with nary any redeeming feature ( Burchill’s opening to Ghostdancing is the nary).
This was the sound of Kerr desperately trying to recreate Don’t You Forget About Me ten times over and getting worse each time. Mullet and a Bono/Live Aid moment fixation
Self important bilge start to finish with Bob Clearmountain adding an extra sheen of shining tosh with the production.
Awful, awful record. Give me Street Fighting Years any day. Whilst the messiah complex was out of control, at least it had laughing Lou on it
I’ll give Street Fighting Years another go – for me, my memory is blighted by Mandela Day and Belfast Child. For whatever reason, I just can’t get on with those two tracks.
The rot had already set in with Sparkle in the Rain. The run of great Simple Minds albums ended with New Gold Dream.
The world might have been a different place if Bryan Ferry had recorded the song, as I believe he was asked to do. He turned it down because it wasn’t very good.
The Minds took the King’s Shilling and the rest is history.
This is copied from a thread I started here some time ago called When They Lost it and Why…
“Over the years I have given more thought to exactly when Simple Minds lost it than any other band. They’re not my favourite band by any stretch and for years, like a poster on the other thread, I thought it was as simple as getting rid of the genius-of-bass Derek Forbes. I felt this was compounded by the pursuit of the American market through the awful likes of Don’t You Forget About Me and allowing producers/writers to influence their vision (Keith Forsey, I think…) Key to this was the inclusion of actual piano sounds as opposed to the wonderfully abstract keyboard sounds of their previous albums…
Anyway, having dwelt on this matter too long and too often, I have come up with the notion that it was on the track Up On the Catwalk at the precise moment that Jim mentions Nastassja Kinski, presumably in an understandable attempt to register on her radar, that Simple Minds lost it, for it never to return again. Until that point, they operated in the abstract – Theme for Great Cities was exactly that, not London Calling. Nothing they did really referred to the real world (ignoring Konstantinople and Chelsea Girl…okay) that the rest of us occupied and that was the appeal. As soon as a real life person was referenced, the bubble had burst…never to be unburst. I rest my case.”
Things like this are important, and you are perfectly correct to spend a possibly inordinate amount of time dissecting the reasons.
Your theory is to be commended
I think you may be right. I loved Waterfront, but found the album to be massively underwhelming. I still went to see them at Hammersmith Odeon, was an awful, awful, phoned in show, one of the worst I saw by anybody. And Kerr came over as a massive jerk by dedicating “Speed Your Love to Me” to Ray Davies, 5 minutes after Chrissie Hynde had left the Sunny Afternoon crooner for him.
* At the time I didn’t know yet that Davies was a jerk too and felt sorry for him.
I was at that Hammersmith gig too. I didn’t think it was that bad, but as far as I can recall, certainly wasn’t overly impressed.
I don’t recall the Ray Davies comment and I don’t remember any discussion of it afterwards among the people I was with. I’m not entirely sure we were aware that JK and CH had at that point become an item.
Had JK hooked up with Patsy Kensit at this time, or did she come after CH? The vagaries of celebrity lives; how transient they are in memory.
Sparkle In The Rain was for me the start of the decline. A very mixed bag. I’ve never had anything against DYFAM; I still quite like it..
We are kindred spirits RD (God help you). The 3 albums you mention are brilliant, ones I return to quite often, a great run of great tunes. Bombastic and over the top but all the better for it. Cannot listen to DYFAM
Don’t think it killed them per se but seriously messed with their mojo. They have produced the odd decent track since 1985 but consistency has deserted them. And having Mick MacNeil leave after the 1989 Street Fighting Years tour meant that Burchill has carried the burden of being the main songwriter ever since. Still think they produce better melodies and arrangements than most other bands .. but can be ropey as shite too.
Their 5 x 5 tour was one of my most cherished of concert memories. Five songs played from each of the first five albums. No Waterfront, no Don’t You Forget About Me, and most pleasingly (for me) no Alive & Kicking. It was my ‘Circus of Heaven’ moment i.e. completely out of the blue and never to be repeated.
A truly great band .. that disappeared up its own arse, and which it occasionally comes out when it fancies or when Haley’s Comet is in the vicinity.
The real problem I have with Simple Minds is that Jim Kerr, as a human being, appears to have re-emerged from the tunnel a wiser man with his sense of humour returned. I heard him present some shows recently on Absolute Radio and the songs were well chosen and he was pleasant witty informed company. But they’ll never recapture the spark of their early days and I think he knows it.
No band responsible for I Travel could ever be completely wretched, even if they also did The Ballad Of the Streets ep.
FWIIW, I saw them on the Big Music tour last year & thought they were fantastic.
So there…
Have seen them loads of times and they usually deliver in spades. Have only witnessed them dial in a performance once and that was at Wembley Arena on their Graffiti Soul tour (I think). The audience were just not up for it and frankly even Prince or Springsteen would have been hard-pressed to raise more than polite applause.
As an eternal optimist I loved – absolutely loved – Once Upon a Time when it came out although I never got on with Alive and Kicking. I also quite liked DYFAM. It was Street Fighting Years that turned me a bit cold on them and once that happened, I stopped caring.
I have never returned to Street Fighting Years, I cannot bear Once Upon a Time – I have begun to kinda like Sparkle in the Rain a bit more. I have never stopped loving New Gold Dream.
I was there at the very start. I didn’t get to see Johnny & the Self Abusers but I saw the very first Minds gig (above The Apollo on a four band bill with Edwin Collins’ first band and I think Steel Pulse at the top of the bill). I was at The Mars Bar every Sunday that I could throughout 1978. It was the only time I watched a band grow like that.
Replacing Brian McGhee with Mel Gaynor was the death blow. Just look at his gormless teeth in this clip below.