Simple Minds: Sparkle In The Rain - 1984
This was definitely the album where Simple Minds moved all the way from cultish one-time punks and post punks into chart-topping stadium rockers, bringing their grandiose brand of synth-pop to a huge, expanded audience. Post punkers were joined by new romantics but, more importantly disco girls, soul boys and chart pop fans now seemed to like Simple Minds.
The album was hugely popular and, although it isn’t truly my thing, I can understand its popularity. It gets up off its ass and hits you between the ears. There is a “bigness” about it. Overblown? For sure. It is not as hugely commercial as you might imagine, however. Because of that, I struggle to understand its mainstream popularity. It is a bit of a sombre, serious album. Personally I prefer New Gold Dream, which is a bit odd because I wanted more lead guitar and now that I have it on here, I still prefer the album that didn’t have it.
Up On The Catwalk is riffier than the group’s usual fare, but it still suffers from an irritating tinniness, particularly on the crashing drum sound. The rousing Book Of Brilliant Things is warmer and bassier, thankfully, as is the pounding Speed Your Love To Me.
The album’s big hit was Waterfront, and, while it is extremely catchy, I still wish it could be re-recorded with some decent production- its layers of synths and false-sounding drums are very grating, spoiling a good song, for me. That said, I don’t dismiss it completely and, as I have said about the group before, they have a certain something about them that requires you to listen.
East At Easter exemplified the group’s U2 sound-alike tendencies, introducing an Edge-style guitar sound and some supposedly portentous Bono-influenced lyrics. On the previous album they had tended to avoid electric lead guitars, but they use it here, effectively.
The “sha la la” vocal of Street Hassle is also straight out of the Bono songbook. I am sorry to keep going on about the U2 thing but White Hot Day sounds just like them - the whole dramatic delivery of it, both musically and vocally.
The strangely-titled “C” Moon Cry Like A Baby is refreshingly warm and bassy, for once, and is almost funky in places. Some chunky riffage features on The Kick Inside Of Me which sounds very like Big Country in parts. The album ends with a keyboard-driven instrumental in Shake Off The Ghosts.