CD: Simple Minds - Big Music | reviews, news & interviews
CD: Simple Minds - Big Music
CD: Simple Minds - Big Music
They're serious and hip again, but is that what we want?
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/mast_image_landscape/public/mastimages/Simple-Minds1.jpg?itok=1gmLms4Y)
These days, it's not just those of a certain age who remember Simple Minds early days. Fans and critics alike have been reappraising the group's New Wave phase. The band too. Jim Kerr recently said to one theartsdesk writer "maybe we shouldn't have cashed in". Which sounds like an appealing sentiment until you realise it would have entailed denying the world "Alive and Kicking" and "Waterfront".
More pertinently, where you stand on the relative stages of the bands career will dictate what you make of Big Music. Like 2005's Black and White 050505, the album plugs straight into the New Gold Dream sound. And, even for diehard fans of The Breakfast Club soundtrack this is not entirely a bad thing. The title track may be full of electronic noises but it's also comprised of big beats, synths and anthemic vocals. “Let the Day Begin” also moves along at quite a groovy pace. Then there are other bits of songs that successfully burrow themselves into your ears: the beginning of “Midnight Walking” is lovely and sad in a Bowie's Low way. The chorus to “Broken Glass Park” is nicely thunderous.
Often, though, the songs feel like they are trying too hard to be cool. As such some seem more like convincing replicas of the band's erstwhile serious side rather than the real thing. “Concrete and Cherry Blossom”, for instance, contains so many Eighties motifs it ends up a jumbled mess. And the minor chords of “Blood Diamonds” don't sound haunting, they just sound like musical indigestion. At least, that is, if you are secretly hankering for some stadium pop. Still, you can only admire the band for moving forward. Even if it is by looking back at 1982.
Overleaf: Watch the video for "Honest Town"
rating
Share this article
Add comment
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more New music
![Peter Baumann in 1976, as he was on the cover of his first solo album 'Romance ’76' - before he left Tangerine Dream](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Peter%20Baumann%20-%20Phase%20By%20Phase%20The%20Virgin%20Albums_header_1000.jpg?itok=EzsjhNAs)
![Scratch goes into space for the last time](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Lee%20Scratch%20Perry%20and%20Youth%20-%20Spaceship%20To%20Mars%20TAD.jpg?itok=s5kEO00o)
![Mercury Rev's 'Born Horses': mind-blowing](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/mercury%20rev%20born%20horses.jpg?itok=NjxK8lkR)
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/cover%20Galliano%20-%20Halfway%20Somewhere.jpg?itok=qPSPe5ZH)
!['Cave saddling up and riding through a misty land of choirs and strings'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/WildGod.jpg?itok=k073fxiu)
!['A remarkable experience of nostalgic romance and melancholic glamour from this cinematic star'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/PXL_20240824_201115220.jpg?itok=OVpiKCWg)
![blink-182 enchant with their performance of hits new and old](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/blinkfinal.jpg?itok=FZhU6D-j)
!['Zenón doesn’t do in-your-face polemic; his ways are altogether cleverer and subtler'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Cover_Zen%C3%B3n_Golden_City_%20resize.jpg?itok=rS3bsW6-)
!['This was about jazz and its offshoots still surging with life and still pushing against boundaries'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/WOH2024_LaurenLuxenberg_S8A5347.jpg?itok=9AReosNS)
![Shadowplay, with main-man Brandi Ifgray at the front](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Shadowplay_Header_1000_Stupido%20Records%20Jouko%20Lehtola.jpg?itok=P8CwWd4j)
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/659de5ec82182e3a83f4a9ed045ee50dee9b577e1eda46200bbd8c5b051944e2.jpg?itok=9EGs30UR)
![The new New Age gathers](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/medfest1.jpg?itok=0M9Qf3Yt)
Comments
I have to admit that I was a
Trying to be too cool??? What
Dear Steve, Simple Minds