The hideous, almost laughable uncoolness of Simple Minds (Wiki/fan site) today is a useful shorthand for the worst kind of swollen, stadium-oriented bombast. But it also, crassly, erases any credit for their often outstanding early albums.
AMG thinks otherwise, but to these ears Sons & Fascination & the bonus Sister Feelings Call were the high point of this era; the two are usually packaged together into a must-own single CD these days. Listen to 70 Cities As Love Brings The Fall & The American to get a sense of how good - dramatic, textured, thrilling - they are.
Video (live 1981):
4 comments:
Agreed, although I prefer "Life In A Day".
The last of their good albums was probably "Real Life" and after that it has been bad, BAD and AWFUL (the covers album is especially poor).
Interesting....I just bought Sons & Fascination again having not listened to it for some years & it's great - heavy disco. Their most consistent work. How did they get from this to Alive & Kicking in 4 years?
jon. phoenix, AZ
The wonderful Steve Hillage (Gong, System 7) produced "Sons"...I like this record very much indeed. It's the best thing they ever did, though "Promised You A..."" gave me goose bumps as a nipper. "Book Of Brilliant Things" also does that for me too (produced with groovy Steve Lillywhite and his lovely late lamented wife Kirsty MacColl wife). The myth (or so it goes) is that Johnny and The Self Abusers (for that is what they were monikered during Punkage) when getting their big contract, threw off the top of a building a copy of The Faust Tapes (one of my favourtie albums) I guess this worked...since it was indeed destroying the power (in their minds anyway) of that cosmic disc. "Alive & Kicking" was the end...to many things going into to many places for four years. Stadiums... they fuck you up :)
Scottie, Jon & Zed, thanks for your comments & enthusiasm for this great album (especially as I suspect the other half of LMYE has yet to be convinced...)!
All the best,
JacL
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