Let’s Rank All The Simple Minds Albums!
Simple Minds have been making albums pretty consistently for almost a half century and they’ve never made a “bad” one. I’ve been a pretty big fan since the mid 1980’s, have seen them live twice and they’re a really important band to me, so it’s time to give their body of work some love here! Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill represent a primary words / music partnership that has stood the test of time really beyond any to come out of the alternative scene of the 70’s and 80’s with the only others comparable I would argue in length and consistency being Bono & The Edge and Dave Gahan & Martin Gore. Overall it’s gotta be Jagger and Richards but that’s another post…
As for Simple Minds they’ve had their share of commercial success but I’m not sure the average music fan or even casual Simple Minds fan is really aware of the sizable body of work they’ve produced since 1979 that is still going at present, and I think they are woefully underappreciated in general. You could make a mixtape of just their instrumentals alone and it would be fantastic. They’ve progressed from underground art rock and avant garde all the way to over the top stadium style bombast with some electronic dance and experimental mixed in, and Jim Kerr’s distinct vocals and dramatic flair at the center of it all right down to some of the greatest “la la la” singalongs in rock history!
So let’s get to it for the boys from Glasgow, Scotland - let’s rank all the Simple Minds albums!
Let’s Rank All The Simple Minds Albums!
18. Life In A Day (1979) Okay so yeah, a bit of a raw start with the band figuring out who they were. Interesting from a historical perspective with a couple of songs that are noteworthy as they try out some post-punk stylings with some Bowie, Velvet Underground and Roxy Music mixed in (they took the name Simple Minds from the “simple minded” lyric in Jean Genie). Chelsea Girl is the single worth noting and interestingly enough it’s the B-side Special View that I like maybe more than anything on the album.
17. Our Secrets Are The Same (1999) I’m not quite sure what was going on but Simple Minds really had started to slip at this point. The album prior to this one Neapolis was never released in the U.S. for some reason - more on that later - and the next album Our Secrets Are The Same wasn’t released…..anywhere. It was totally shelved and didn’t see the light of day until it was included as the 4th disc in the Silver Box box set 5 years later. I was certainly curious to hear it when I finally got my hands on it but it’s just nothing special - not awful, just really only for completists. Maybe that’s why it was withdrawn by Virgin Records although I’m not typically willing to give record companies the benefit of the doubt - more on that later too. They followed this in 2000 with Neon Lights which was a marginally interesting covers album - I think they were running out of ideas at the time. The song Hello is the keeper from this one.
16. Real To Real Cacophony (1979) This album is weird. It’s their second album and it is significant in that it is the one where they start to chart their own path although it’s a bit too experimental and avant garde in spots. It does contain their first bonafide classic though with the absolutely killer Premonition. Much of their early aesthetic was that of a menacing & mysterious vibe but still often danceable and this is the early blueprint with the pulsing Derek Forbes bassline, a couple of ethereal synths and electronic beeps and bloops. There’s some Joy Division influence here. Changeling is a really good tune, Calling Your Name and Citizen (Dance Of Youth) are interesting enough and the opening track Real to Real I do like, but the rest is uneven.
15. Black and White 050505 (2005) You can almost break down the band’s output into 4 “eras” in my opinion. Early stuff from ‘79-’81, path to world domination and peak from ‘82-’91, soldiering on with mixed results ‘92-’13, and resurgence ‘14 - present day. These next five starting with this one are all from the mixed results era and once again none of them are bad - they fall between average and very good with some great highlights sprinkled throughout. Black and White 050505 is average - just not consistently memorable throughout. The best track here is the opener Stay Visible which gives you hope but the rest never quite gets there fully, and while they might not have been aware of what Madonna had been doing Stranger is so close to Madonna’s world wide smash hit Beautiful Stranger from just 6 years prior that it’s impossible to take the song seriously. The Jeweller Pt. 2 is an unnecessary alternate version of Jeweller To The Stars from the Our Secrets Are The Same album which was released in the Silver Box set just one year earlier. The playing is professional and competent but I don’t listen to this one much. Home and the title track are good tunes.
14. Graffiti Soul (2009) Graffiti Soul is a little better than Black and White but not by much. Much like the prior LP it sounds like Simple Minds just with less inspiration. This one might be slightly more consistent throughout (nothing cringeworthy like Stranger or unnecessary like The Jeweller Pt. 2) but there are still no major standouts here. Once again the opener is a good way to kick it off with Moscow Underground with some good guitar work by Burchill, and beyond that the album plays as a just competent and professional sounding outing. Again. Rockets and the title track are pretty good.
13. Cry (2002) Cry isn’t bad - the problem is that Charlie Burchill is barely on it. Think a U2 album with barely any of Edge’s guitar (okay that has kinda happened, and those albums suck - I won’t say this album sucks). There are a few good songs here including one GREAT one in New Sunshine Morning - one of my favorites and one that transports me back to Atlanta when I was down there for training for a past corporate job with Sprint and I had a moment driving around the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield listening to that song. These songs are a little more pop oriented and as usual they are professionally executed and produced, but overall the songwriting isn’t totally up to snuff throughout. The title track, Spaceface, One Step Closer and Sugar are all pretty good.
12. Good News From The Next World (1995) The quality drops off a hair from the previous triumph of Real Life and thus begins the era of inconsistency for the band. But there are some bangers here - I still like this album a lot. I remember reading an interview in either Spin or Rolling Stone at the time where Jim Kerr admitted to a little writer’s block during the 4 year gap that culminated in this album and it’s just him and Charlie Burchill - they wrote the whole album just the two of them and used session musicians - they were the only two official members in the band at this point. Jim also shows up on the album back cover with really long hair which just isn’t him lol. But they still managed to pull it together and kick out a few big bombastic tunes that they are really good at like the rousing opener She’s A River and the next track Night Music - both big and dramatic in a good way. Hypnotized follows which is a fantastic tune...more subdued and yes, a bit hypnotic with the cool bass line, an air of mystery and some amazing guitar work from Charlie. He actually gives a really strong performance throughout - Great Leap Forward is another good one so the album starts out with 4 straight jams. From here on out on this list the albums are generally strong. I’m typically a little reluctant to use the word “filler” but the next few songs I guess are a bit of filler. However the filler here is still pretty good and then the album finishes on a strong note with This Time.
11. Neapolis (1998) This is an unusual one - an album that I always felt stood on its own as a bit of an outlier. It’s still very much Simple Minds, and it marks Mel Gaynor’s (second) return to the band as an official member (even though he only plays drums on one song and still appears on the cover) as well as the return of Derek Forbes on bass after a decade. But instead of that signaling a recapturing of the big dramatic sound it’s decidedly NOT commercial in any way and did not even get released at all in the states (I had to buy a Canadian import at the time). That is ridiculous by the way - here’s a band that wasn’t far removed from some huge hit records and Chrysalis doesn’t even release it due to lack of interest? Seemed outrageous to me. It doesn’t quite sound like any other Simple Minds album even though many elements of it do. I know that doesn’t make much sense but that’s the only way I can describe it. I wasn’t even sure what to make of it for some time but it’s grown on me over the years. The whole thing is a mood that ties the songs together but there are definite highlights such as War Babies, Tears Of A Guy, Superman vs. Supersoul, If I Had Wings, and the cool instrumental closer Androgyny that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on their early albums. The music BUSINESS is shit. I give the band a ton of credit for this album. It’s not a “masterpiece” I suppose but it’s really really good and a unique entry in their body of work.
10. Street Fighting Years (1989) Another strange entry. The band hit a commercial peak by 1985 with the success of the massive hit single (Don’t You) Forget About Me and the huge success of Once Upon A Time, and then….nothing for four years. When they returned with Street Fighting Years the official lineup was down to a trio of Kerr, Burchill, and Mick MacNeil (Mel Gaynor played drums on three tracks) which was the start of frequent lineup changes from there on out. The album was a shift in direction with more political themes and the album starts with 3 of 4 tracks being on the mellow side. It didn’t do well in the U.S. and the band didn’t capitalize on the momentum they had. The album was huge in the UK and the first single Belfast Child was a #1 there. It wasn’t even a single here at all, and I never understood why the song seemed to be such a big deal to Simple Minds fans and the band. I was not even aware it was a hit for them - just a disjointed time that I didn’t get. As for the album I do really like it - the first 4 songs are amazing. After that I lose a little interest but the opening title track and the next track Soul Crying Out are flat out gorgeous. Stunning. Wall Of Love has a huge sound and the first single in the states This Is Your Land is great with a guest vocal by none other than one of the band’s heroes Lou Reed. If the album ended there I’d be fine and I’d probably still have it ranked right here.
9. Big Music (2014) The next three albums represent the resurgance of the band and each gets progressively better. At this point the band had been allegedly “returning to form” for several albums without really returning to form. This was the first album in quite a while where my ears perked up for real and I heard a bit of that chiming, soaring make-you-feel-great Simple Minds vibe with the obvious standout being Let The Day Begin. Let me be clear - this isn’t the only type of Simple Minds song I love. I’m not simply some sucker for the big fill-a-stadium grandiose statements…. okay maybe I am - I’ll admit I’m drawn to the same stuff with Pearl Jam for example. But how can Let The Day Begin not hit you? Blood Diamonds is another good one with a powerful chorus and a really nice cool synth/guitar point/counterpoint. The title track Big Music lives up to its name - good pulsing jam with a big sound. The band just sounds revitalized. Broken Glass Park is another highlight but the whole album is pretty enjoyable.
8. Walk Between Worlds (2018) After an all acoustic album of Simple Minds standards the band returned with another winner in 2018. This album and Big Music are pretty much interchangeable - similar energy, solidly produced and executed with some really good songs. The album kicks off with a couple good ones in Magic and Summer but the LP really picks up pace on the 4th track The Signal And The Noise, the following track In Dreams and the grandiose Barrowland Star - another big one that I’m a sucker for in the Alive and Kicking tradition… There’s another one of these with a big chorus in Sense Of Discovery and Silent Kiss is a good jam too. The live cover of The Pogues’ Dirty Old Town is actually a nice touch as the finish.
7. Direction Of The Heart (2022) The latest and the best of the current three album winning streak and what has to be my favorite Simple Minds album since Real Life in 1991. It opens with a fantastic tribute to Jim Kerr’s late dad in Vision Thing - a perfect balance of tribute-yet-solid-album-opener without getting sappy in any way (even though Jim could certainly be forgiven if he went that way). The thing is this album could move up this list - it’s too soon to know where it really belongs. The 6 albums ahead of it represent some of my favorite music of my life so I’m not ready to displace any of them, but I’m so excited about this one and haven’t peaked on it yet. Where the previous two albums sound really good all the way through even if not every single song is a classic, this album is great from start to finish like the first three albums on this list are. Not one weak track. They don’t sound like they’re trying too hard here - it sounds effortless and inspired and I hope it bodes well for a few more LPs of this caliber. First You Jump is great and Human Traffic is fun - it’s actually not about human trafficking but rather a game concept for how humans move around the world. They’ve always returned to ideas involving cities and travel (and ghosts of course) and this seems to fit with that. Who Killed Truth? is certainly a legit question and framed as a call to action for people to come together. 4 great songs before they take it up another notch with Solstice Kiss - this is the obvious soaring feel good Simple Minds classic sound that………yes, I’m a sucker for. Then comes Act Of Love which is a song they wrote and played at their very first gig in January 1978 in Glasgow but they never recorded it. Such a cool link to the past and a great song to boot - I feel like it might have been the best song on Life In A Day if they would have recorded it then. The cover of The Call’s The Walls Came Down is a solid finish and the title track is actually a “bonus track” on the digital release - also really good. If you were a fan for years way back but had no idea they were still making records you should be happy with this.
6. Empires and Dance (1980) If Real to Real Cacophony was the first step towards Simple Minds finding their sound and identity, then Empires and Dance was their first large step. It’s not a perfect album and still contains a couple of experiments that don’t quite work like Twist/Run/Repulsion. But - there are some all timers here. The opener - the rousing, pulsating & largely electronic I Travel serves notice that something different is happening this time around. The second track is the menacing and Joy Division-influenced Today I Died Again and then comes the giant Celebrate which seems to inform the following year’s cover of Tainted Love by Soft Cell. The next tune This Fear Of Gods is KILLER. Maybe the most underrated tune in their catalogue - never featured on any collections, rarely played live (although surprisingly they broke it out a couple of tours ago for a handful of shows) but man….. it’s almost more of a groove than a fully developed song structure - it’s completely hypnotic with big booming drums and it just kicks ass. The other towering classic here is the herky jerky but spacey and menacing Thirty Frames A Second. This band had truly arrived with this album.
5. Real Life (1991) The last real classic from that peak period of ‘82-’91, this album had huge hits and was the last Simple Minds album to get a ton of radio play (when that was still a thing). The lead single See The Lights isn’t really a rocker per se but it is beautiful soaring, chiming track. It signals a return to the big statements of Sparkle In The Rain and Once Upon A Time after the detour of Street Fighting Years, and it’s a rewarding return at that. The opening title track serves as an announcement “Quit dreaming this is real life baby!” - like LFG! Let There Be Love is really pretty, and Woman is a song that doesn’t quite sound like anything they’ve done - a fascinating work of dynamics being used to really dramatic effect. Awesome execution but with space for bits of improvisation throughout from whispers to blasts and a cool repeating riff that abruptly ends just for Stand By Love to roar into the proceedings. Big and loud, this is Simple Minds at their anthemic best. A great 5 track run before the album settles into a few good-to average-tunes in the middle (Traveling Man for example just sounds like a Waterfront rewrite - one of their classics - not horrible just not memorable), but the album finishes strong with some gorgeous mellow tunes Banging On The Door, Rivers Of Ice, and When Two Worlds Collide.
4. Sister Feelings Call / Sons and Fascination (1981) I was always a little confused by these two because they seem to be referenced together to the point of them being considered a double album. But they’re separate right? Well they were released that way simultaneously but the band recorded them all together intending them to all be on one album. It’s a total of 15 tracks with one being the instrumental version of 70 Cities As Love Brings The Fall so I think it makes more sense to consider these as one album. Even the artwork is of a piece. Sister Feelings Call kicks off with one of their best instrumentals Themes For Great Cities - there’s that fascination with cities! So many great instrumentals over the years from these guys. The American is another classic with the chorus refrain of “aMERi Ameri aMERi amerI AmerIcan!” Not every song is a total winner here, but there are some hidden gems among the big ones like the tribal League Of Nations, Seeing Out The Angels and title track Sons and Fascination (which includes “Sister Feelings Call” as a lyric in case you weren’t a little confused enough lol). Sweat In Bullet is a great one too - my first introduction to early Simple Minds was the limited release Themes For Great Cities which was a best of from everything prior to 1982 and I played the crap out of that collection before I ventured deeper into each album. Sweat In Bullet was on that collection. I think albums 4-7 may ultimately be interchangeable when it comes to ranking them, so I put this one here maybe because it contains two of their best ever - the epic and spacey In Trance As Mission and what I still feel is the overall quintessential Simple Minds song - Love Song. The casual fan may think it’s (Don’t You) Forget About Me which I get, but those who know, know. It’s Love Song. That Derek Forbes bass line is iconic. Flesh of heart. Heart of steel.
3. Once Upon A Time (1985) The band’s commercial peak but it never feels like a sellout to me - sure it’s a bit more accessible and really well produced but it’s SO good. The band’s only top 10 album in the States (which is a crime) peaking at #10. For comparison Simple Minds had NINE top 10 albums in the UK including THREE #1s, two #2s, two #4s and four others in the top 20. The next highest chart position in the U.S. was Sparkle In The Rain at #64. I’ll never understand…but I digress. The opener with the big snare blast of the title track - always gets me. This album is tightly tied in my psyche to Washington D.C. - my brother was in law school there when this came out and this album transports me back there visiting as a teen. The secret weapon here is Robin Clark’s vocals - her career as a vocalist stretches back to David Bowie’s Young Americans and I love her contributions during this era of Simple Minds - most obviously with her solo vocals in the middle on the towering Alive and Kicking which reached #2 on the American charts. What a great video too with them on top of the cliff! All The Things She Said is fantastic, Ghost Dancing gives a nod back to I Travel with the opening lyrics “Cities buildings falling down, satellites come crashing down!” All of these songs are uplifting and they rock and the album doesn’t slow down with Oh Jungleland, the understated I Wish You Were Here and then another top 10 hit with Sanctify Yourself - another anthem with a great bassline and a far eastern flair that updates some of the sounds they made before they hit it big wrapped in a more commercial but equally powerful package. I wish the album finished on a slightly stronger note than Come A Long Way - it’s not bad but it’s the slightest song here - a very minor complaint for this landmark achievement.
2. Sparkle In The Rain (1984) Sparkle In The Rain marked a new direction for the band of big arena-sized grandiosity with songs that rocked and were massive and shiny. Mel Gaynor’s drumming is turned way up and given a big full sound as are Charlie Burchill’s guitars along with…..well everything else really. The album kicks ASS. Loud, shimmering and grandiose right from the start with Up On The Catwalk and it doesn’t let up with the next three tracks Book of Brilliant Things, Speed Your Love To Me and Waterfront. Waterfront is the big one. A Simple Minds classic with a killer guitar hook, with Jim Kerr summoning all the majesty he can in the stepping in and out of the rain, moving on up, stepping on up, living on up, walking on up - to the WATERFRONT of the River Clyde in Glasgow. From there the album settles in for some softer fare but still pretty intense with the slow build of East At Easter before bringing their Velvet Underground obsessions to bear with the magnificent Lou Reed cover Street Hassle. White Hot Day and “C” Moon Cry Like A Baby are both just really solid album tracks before the raucous and thrilling Kick Inside Of Me with Jim trying to shake off the ghosts inside of him before finishing with the beautiful instrumental of……what else - Shake Off The Ghosts. I love this album.
1. New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84) (1982) The masterpiece. And the perfect transitional album - some of my favorite albums capture a band in between periods where they’ve started to chart new territory but haven’t fully arrived there yet and the moment ends up a unique one in their history. Think Ministry’s Twitch, U2’s Unforgettable Fire, or Pink Floyd’s Meddle. This album is considerably more sophisticated than all of the early albums that came before it (even in the artwork), but it doesn’t go full bombast like the LPs that follow it. It’s a vibe - an ethereal journey that has its rousing moments yes, but this one hits differently. Something about the muted but still weighty sound of the drums in the production is fascinating to me and adds to the uniqueness of the album. It exists in a world of its own. Mel Gaynor was brought in as a session drummer and ended up joining the band full time during the recording of this album, so he only plays on 6 of the 9 tracks but you wouldn’t know it. The synths are the star of many of these songs - in many cases dancing just above the main groove or weaving in and out here and there for an otherworldly feel - this is keyboardist Michael MacNeil’s finest moment with the band, and Herbie Hancock adds a keyboard solo to Hunter and the Hunted. Yep - that Herbie Hancock. It kicks off with Someone Somewhere in Summertime and Colours Fly and Catherine Wheel - both complex in their execution and they are both fascinating tracks. It picks up a bit with the bouncy Promised You A Miracle and Charlie Burchill shows up here with some guitar soloing while Derek Forbes turns in another killer bassline during the verses. From there it slips into the absolutely incredible Big Sleep and I’m running out of superlatives for the songs on this album. A trippy dreamlike 5 minute jam, it’s one of my favorites, followed by my very favorite instrumental they’ve ever done Somebody Up There Likes You. This is music for walking on the moon, or at least sitting in a planetarium. From there the energy picks back up with the classic and driving title track and the uplifting Glittering Prize, before settling back into a couple of ethereal trips to end it with Hunter And The Hunted and King Is White And In The Crowd. Absolutely the crowning achievement of the band.
So there it is - my full ranking of Simple Minds LPs! What do you think - agree? Disagree? Tell me in the comments!
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