Monday, 12 March 2012

Simple Minds/Empires And Dance


I have to confess I have spent most of the week listening to early Simple Minds. Not just this one but most of the excellent “x5” reissue that pulls together the first 5 or 6 albums (depending on how you classify Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call that was kind of a double and kind of 2 single albums when originally released). Primarily, Real To Real Cacophony, Empires And Dance and the aforementioned Sons/Sisters.
I really had forgotten just how great Simple Minds were in this period. That horrible thing that followed, that pure evil that was the “U2 with synthesizers” thing that came after the New Gold Dream album, had so left its ghastly fingerprints on my musical memory, I was genuinely shocked when I played these again, probably for the first time in over ten years.
Sticking just to the album on the list for the time being – like Harmonia and Eno it is awesome train music. I Travel, Constantinople Line, Thirty Frames A Second and This Fear Of Gods are easily as good as anything Bowie released when he was similarly as in awe of “Europe” and “European Music”. Yes, The Minds were pinching his ideas but my word what they formulated with the same ingredients was bloody great stuff.



No comments:

Post a Comment