A hit song can be a mixed blessing. The catbird seat atop the singes chart must be a satisfying (not to mention scary) perch, but imagine attaining it with someone else's song after releasing seven LPs of original material. How do you convince a devoted cult that said smash isn't a sellout, no matter how strongly it may recall Bitty Idol? And what happens to those new admirers when, seduced by a modest but irresistible come-on, they discover you are as hard to fathom as to forget? In Simple Minds' case, the hit single may be a bit misleading, but it's not necessarily misbegotten.
Reportedly, writer and producer Keith Forsey first offered "Don't You (Forget about Me)" to Bryan Ferry,
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who declined to record it. Unknowingly, the former leader of Roxy Music helped put the most promising of his musical progeny in a tricky position.
Once upon a Time finds Simple Minds trying to have it both ways – building on that unexpected success without forsaking its base of supporters. The album contains neither a film-soundtrack tie-in nor the sort of sprawling dance-track epic that endeared this Scottish band to a generation of European teens and a clutch of American import-bin mavens. Instead, producers Bob Clearmountain and Jimmy "I Tamed Patti Smith" Iovine have harnessed singer Jim Kerr's emotionalism without slipping a noose around his neck and reined the band's expansiveness without limiting its reach.
Kerr's lyrics have always been ambitious, as a glance at Simple Minds' early album titles confirms: Themes for Great Cities, Sister Feelings Call, Sons and Fascination. Turn-of-the-decade British hits like "I Travel" and "The American" came close to providing a dance-floor foundation for Kerr's grand and occasionally grandiose sentiments, but it wasn't until 1982 and New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) that sound and vision coalesced for Simple Minds. Producer Pete Walsh polished Mick MacNeil's multilayered keyboards and Charlie Burchill's clean, melodic guitar lines into a shimmering gloss that allowed Jim Kerr's skittish, semi-improvised vocal style to shine through.
After the peak of "Promised You a Miracle" – virtually a four-minute-long hook – Simple Minds looked ready to go the distance, but last year's Sparkle in the Rain was an uneven, frustrating affair. Tunes like "Up on the Catwalk" rocked with a new authority, but producer Steve Lillywhite flattened the band's textured sweep into a one-dimensional thud, obscuring some of Kerr's most impassioned singing to date. A support slot on the Pretenders' 1984 tour wasn't quite the breakthrough it could have been, and when Kerr's open-throated trill and that glistening wall of sound popped up during The Breakfast Club, it must have seemed an act of desperation to longtime fans.
An inherently hooky, formulaic number that probably could have been a hit for Michael Des Barres, "Don't You (Forget about Me)" still benefited from the stamp
