If we have learned anything in the 42 years of listening, often compulsively, to Simple Minds, it’s the fact that the band’s most compelling music was usually down to the sinuous and trance-inducing bass lines of Derek Forbes. I first heard Simple Minds with the single “Sweat In Bullet,” and the fretless bass playing on that was a clarion call to make sure my eyes and ears were clapped on Mr. Forbes, since whatever he was doing in the song was of paramount importance. The only other bassist I could point to of comparable skill and vision was William “Bootsy” Collins.
This was also a point of view shared by Peter Walsh; producer of the band’s epochal “New Gold Dream [81, 82, 83, 84]” album. In his forward to this book, Mr. Walsh exclaimed that when he heard Simple Minds, he perceived the entity that could unite Bowie/Roxy/Gabriel Art Rock leanings with the Funk and R+B he shared passions for within a singular band. That was absolutely down to the world-conquering bass lines that Forbes crafted as the foundation of the endlessly compelling material.
I loved Simple Minds from the very first, and over time, my ardor has grown to consider the band’s albums from 1979 to 1984 the finest musical arc of development of any artist I can name. Even the masters that influenced Simple Minds, were mortal and slipped, but the astonishing thing that their imperial period of albums showed was that it was possible for the acolytes to surpass the masters who inspired them without stumbling.
THE END WAS THE BEGINNING
The point at which Simple Minds finally showed their fallibility to these ears, was in 1984 following the heady blur of the “Sparkle In The Rain” Tour Le Monde and the decision to cut Forbes loose from the band. Forbes was friends with John Giblin and by the end of the tour in October of 1984, the Minds were in John’s studio in Barwell Court writing material for the next album. Knocking songs like “Oh Jungleland,” “All The Things She Said,” Ghost Dancing,” “Sanctify Yourself,” “Come A Long Way,” and “Once Upon A Time” into shape. The year had been a rush of gigs and revelry; with Forbes having a drunken argument with his girlfriend and crashing his car. This got in the press, who were all too happy to publish topless shots of his girlfriend, because that’s just how they roll on Fleet Street.
It was determined by then that Forbes was a bigger liability than asset to the band. The feeling was that he was not giving his all to the group effort. Spending too much time with his girlfriend. Jim Kerr had previously told him that they would not lead with the bass for this new batch of material being worked on. Forbes was called in to a meeting with Jim Kerr on the phone with band and management there and fired. Kerr had offered Giblin the position and he cleared it with his friend Derek before accepting. Forbes was stunned by the blow and gave Giblin the torch with his blessings and wondered what his next move would be.
EARLY ADVENTURES
Like many, Forbes spent his youth obsessing with football and not really getting into playing guitar until his teens. He was a guitarist by the late 70s, but when he got into the Scottish Punk band Subs, he was asked to play bass instead. They managed one single for Stiff Records in 1978 before disbanding. It was at that time that Jim Kerr popped the question to Forbes after his audition for The Rezillos got a thumb up from Jo Callis but naysays from Fay Fife and Eugene Reynolds.
The Simple Minds lineup was now Jim Kerr [vocals], Brian McGee [drums], Charlie Burchill [guitar, violin], Mick MacNeil [keys], Derek Forbes [bass], and Duncan Barnwell [guitar]. Their first gig as Simple Minds at Glasgow’s Mars Bar in 1978 had the band roaring out of the starting blocks with “Act Of Love.” That was the point where Bruce Findlay was exposed to the group and simply had to manage this band. Opening slots for luminaries like Squeeze and Ultravox had Forbes forming a friendship with the latter’s Billy Currie early on.
Arista A&R came with a signing offer contingent upon losing Barnwell; then deemed an incompatible fit with the rest of the band. Forbes cited the “Jim and Charlie Show” and how it fell to them to make the decision. His friend Barnwell then claimed that Jim and Charlie revealed to him they would sack Forbes once they made it. While the early songs were written by Kerr and Burchill, once they had MacNeil and Forbes on board, this would be changing.
EARLY WAXING
The Simple Minds debut album “Life In A Day,” was recorded with the Rolling Stones mobile, whose driver, Pete Stevens, had started making the coveted Wal basses that Forbes bought both fretted and fretless models of. Their first tv appearance on The Old Gray Whistle Test preceded a tour opening for the esteemed Magazine on their “Secondhand Daylight” tour. At The Apollo Manchester the backstage area was far more plush than most environs.
Shirley Bassey had played there, and anywhere she played she would have the dressing room decorated to her taste. The carpet was so thick Charlie nearly got lost in it and we had to throw a rope down to get him out.
Derek Forbes on The Manchester Apollo Dressing Rooms
The group had their famous rethink before recording their transformative “Real To Real Cacophony” album of 1979 and their first European tour happened, which would pay huge artistic dividends soon enough. There was also a trip to NYC to play at the club Hurrah for The Old Grey Whistle Test. This event was duly enshrined on film and used for the “Changeling” live B-side. The band were thrilled to see the likes of Iggy Pop and Blondie in the audience. Rusty Egan had picked up the “Changeling” single and had added it to his influential playlist, but at Arista Records the band’s relationship was deteriorating. The band and management had a dust up over a meal to see if they could come to grips with their differences but even as each member of Simple Minds laid blame at various components of the Arista team, it was apparent that it would end soon. The band even considered the “nuclear option” of a breakup to exit their contact!
The European tour experiences had fed in the strongest way possible with their third album, “Empires + Dance.” Handclaps on “I Travel” were recorded by the entire band with their girlfriends slapping the table tennis playing field. Forbes was thinking far outside the box; forming letters on his fretboard as the basis of his nimble and unique bass lines. “Thirty Frames A Second” was a “Y.” “Twist/Run/Repulsion” was a run of the letter “X!” The band were invited to be the guests for hero Peter Gabriel’s 1980 tour to their astonishment. I can hardly imagine a more compelling pairing than Gabriel with Simple Minds opening on the former’s 1980 European tour! The Frankfurt gig went well but John Giblin of Gabriel’s band was stuck in traffic and Gabriel conscripted Forbes to fill in with a hasty Walkman session before Giblin arrived at the last minute.
GAINING VIRGINITY
Early 1981 found the band courted by Virgin Records thanks to the enthusiasm of A+R man Ross Stapleton. Virgin bought them out of the Arista contact and the band entered a productive phase that saw them finally achieving chart action in various worldwide markets. The first of which being Australia where Stapleton hailed from and knew the market well.
Producer Steve Hillage was kept very busy with the productive album sessions; so much so that he was hospitalized for a suspected heart attack which was merely stress related. Drummer Brian McGee finished the sessions and his time in the band as he didn’t like the time apart from his family. Meanwhile the album had grown into two albums. “Sons + Fascination” and “Sister Feelings Call” would mark a period of expansive growth as the band managed to unite Krautrock, Art Rock, and Funk [as noted up front by Peter Walsh] into a riveting hybrid cocktail of their own making. The first single, “The American,” made inroads to the UK charts for the first time.
By August of 1981, new drummer Kenny Hyslop (ex-Slik) joined up for the tour. The band hit Australia for a tour where the bill was Divinyls, Simple Minds, and Icehouse as A+R man Stapleton sagely teamed them with the locally ascendant and stylistically congruent Antipodean band. The tour helped to deliver Simple Minds with their first top ten placing as following on from the lead of “The American,” “Love Song” charted high in Oz.
Kenny Hyslop wasn’t fated to be their drummer for long but his primary legacy was taping NYC radio stations and capturing a horn riff from a Funk track that became the hook for “Promised You A Miracle; the band’s entrée into the British top ten charts and the euphoric calling card for their next album. Meanwhile, Sweden capitulated to the band’s charms with a gold album for “Sons + Fascination.”
Hyslop never gelled with the band and was replaced with Mike Ogletree (ex-Cafe Jacques) as the “New Gold Dream [81, 82, 82, 84]” writing sessions had begun in Edinburgh. What I wouldn’t give for a peek at a video Forbes and Kerr made of “Vienna” with the former in Midge Ure drag while the latter looked “every inch the doppelgänger of Ultravox’s Billy Currie.” By summer of ‘82 the time for hi jinx was over as the recording sessions for the new album were under way.
THE DREAM MADE FLESH
Producer Walsh was unconvinced by the percussive touch of Ogletree so he roped in a favorite drummer; Mel Gaynor, for more power. Mel and Mike performed as a trio with the drum machine on the epic title track; still one of the band’s acmes. But Mike would be shown the door, leaving Gaynor on the stool. The release of “New Gold Dream [81, 82, 83, 84]” found the band finally fulfilling the enormous promise of their music with solid sales and popularity. Marking a lock on the UK album charts that the band would ride for a solid decade. Cementing their reputation and place in UK rock.
By the time of the Summer of 1983 Euro tour the band had added Lou Reed’s “Street Hassle” to their festival set with an eye on recording it for their next album. A mooted US tour with The Police never happened; leaving the band to split up and write for the next album. Forbes had just procured an amp with a digital delay that could loop 1.5 seconds of sound. From two notes on his Wal bass overlaid with slap bass and harmonics came the juggernaut that was “Waterfront.”
The day before the Phoenix Park Festival in Dublin, Forbes let the nascent “Waterfront” out of the bag and soon afterward the rest of the band added their sauce and by the next day their festival conquering ace in the hole was ready to spread like wildfire; first on festival stages, and then on the world’s charts.
The album had Steve Lillywhite behind the desk and was a radical shift from the gossamer vibe of “New Gold Dream [81, 82, 83, 84].” Never as much as on my long-standing favorite from the album, “The Kick Inside Of Me.” On that furious gem, Forbes was slapping his bass so violently that he cut his thumb open; straying blood all over the place, but never stopping until the track was in the can. And we can hear every drop in the intensity of the track.
APRÉS MINDS
The “Sparkle In The Rain” tour followed and soon after recording “Don’t You [Forget About Me],” Forbes was on the outside of the Simple Minds mothership looking in. He retreated to his farm, ultimately hooking up with his pals, including Billy Currie, which led to him playing on the track “India” on Currie’s first solo album. It’s regretful he didn’t play on every track since “India” was the best track by far on an admittedly great album.
Forbes had an offer to play on a Frida Lyngstad album but before he could say “yes,” his old Simple minds press agent, Keith Bourton, was also managing a fine stable of bands including Propaganda. With the added incentive of Steve Jansen as their rhythm section for a two week tour. Quoth Forbes, “wow, thought I, he’s great!” What began with the “Value Of Entertainment” shows at the Ambassador Theater ended up lasting for a seven year run with the band. Eventually re-linking with Brian McGee on drums after Jansen left to form The Dolphin Brothers.
During Propaganda’s layoff as they extricated themselves from their ZTT contract, Forbes would still socialize with Charlie Burchill and even the full band. It was during one of his larks with Charlie that he met Wendy Kemp, who would become his wife soon afterward. Indeed, his proposal happened only a week after meeting her!
RETURN TO SIMPLE MINDS – YEA AND NAY
After his family, including his son, Kai, had stabilized, Forbes was invited to Bonnie Wee Studios in late 1988 to hear the songs which would become “Street Fighting Years” and was given an invitation to return to playing and writing with Simple Minds at a generous wage, but the songs didn’t convince and he wisely [for my ears] demurred. Forbes bass would have no place in the gaseous events which were the songs of “Street Fighting Years.” Next to that offer, staying with his year old son was far more compelling.
“My one desire at that time was to be back in the band touring, writing, and playing, but the songs I was hearing left me cold. I just didn’t like them.
Derek Forbes on “Street Fighting Years” and his job offer
In late ‘94 Propaganda decided that their touring days were over so with his friend McGee given his walking papers, Forbes left as well; ending that chapter in his CV. Afterward Simple Minds came calling again and that time, Forbes signed on for the “Néapolis” album, but only as a session player. When Forbes said if he wrote a bass line then that’s co-written, he was informed that “we don’t work like that anymore.” Brian McGee also got the call but wasn’t used. Jim and Charlie also reached out to Mel Gaynor who drummed on “War Babies” and played with Forbes and the band on the tour. Including a few European dates opening for The Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge world tour in Torhour and Werchter. The final date in Fourvièr, Lyon stands as the last time Derek Forbes has played bass live for Simple Minds. He did manage add some vibe to the “Black and White 050505” album, uncredited. As one listen to “Stay Visible” clearly revealed.
The book ended on that note with a scant coda barely mentioning a few of the other gigs that Forbes had occupied his time with over the last quarter century. Such as his talk show on Los Angeles radio, “May The Forbes Be With You.” Or his stints in Big Country, The Alarm, the Zanti album, or his current Derek Forbes + The Dark. Has it really been that long since “Néapolis?” That album was an intriguing example of the band trying to tap into the trance vibe that looked back to the group’s first classic era encompassing “Real To Real Cacophony” to “Sister Feelings Call.” That it didn’t connect in quite the same fashion or with the same level of success might be put down to the fact that the “Jim And Charlie Show” were firmly in control.
Their sole album for Chrysalis Records was deemed a flop and that seemed to really rattle the band; kicking off a fallow period for the group that saw them wondering aloud if they still had it in them. That Simple Minds Tours Ltd. preferred to keep Forbes as an employee rather than cutting him a slice of the pie as a writer spoke of the values at work there. I have to look back on that period as a missed opportunity for Simple Minds that only paid some of the potential dividends we could have luxuriated in.
While this book was heavy on the touring hi jinx [in fairness, it is titled “A Very Simple Mind On Tour”] and lighter on the creative nuts and bolts I had been hoping for, one aspect where it surpassed expectations was in providing an unfettered voice of Forbes throughout its pages. It was pure, unfiltered Derek Forbes with nary a ghost writer within miles of its pages. A refreshing occurrence in the now locked down and gentrified rock autobiography world.
BOOK TOUR
Forbes has already begun a UK book tour this month with the following dates still yet to happen. Of special interest would be the Liverpool date at British Music Experience, where there will be an interview hosted by Kevin McManus as well as acoustic music from Forbes.
- Nov. 22 | British Music Experience | Liverpool
- Nov. 28 | Rough Trade | Bristol
- Nov. 29 | Topping Books | Bath
![Forty Years Ago Today, Simple Minds Changed Everything with "New Gold Dream [81,82,83,84]"](https://postpunkmonk.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/new-gold-dream-in-spotlights.jpg?w=200&h=200&crop=1)
Post-Punk Monk 
Been meaning to share this with you and keep forgetting.
Not a huge Simple Minds or U2 fan however it was an interesting read.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/simple-minds-and-u2-how-new-gold-dream-lit-an-unforgettable-fire-1.4778775
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Tim – I’m more than aware of the circular dance between Simple Minds and U2. As a U2 hater I’m aggravated by the fact that U2 copied Simple Minds and and even got Brian Eno to produce! And exploded as a band. Simple Minds made their U2 album with their producer. And then began their artistic decline afterward.
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Hmmm. Just seen this as I came to say thanks for the review. U2 came from somewhere other than Simple Minds altogether. Simple Minds back in the day were for a brief period an amazing experimental band, who unfortunately opted for stadium rock. I saw them supporting Magazine, which was interesting, but was then blown away by later gigs post Real to Real, which were full of interesting textures and rhythms with imagistic lyrics. [We also saw Jim Kerr put a mike stand through a skinhead’s head pre-encore, as the bloke had been chanting seig heil throughout the whole set.] New Gold Dream was the end for me, I’m afraid, not an album I kept very long.
Meanwhile, of course, U2 picked up some krautrock and dance influences for their Pop album and worked hard at spectacle to keep vast crowds entertained…
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Rupert – I prefer The Minds when they were cold. Hard. Glinting. “Empires + Dance” was the apex for me, but I have to admit that I am endlessly beguiled by their volte-face for “New Gold Dream.” As volte-faces go, I find it to be legendary. Where they went off track was down to three things for me:
• Jim Kerr writing direct lyrics and “proper songs”
• Charlie Burchill playing normal [boring] guitar instead of proffering shards of perpendicular texture
• Telling the best bass player in the world that they were going to lead with another instrument, then sacking him for reasons that had nothing to do with him being the best bass player in the world within the context of the band
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You are so right. I love those early albums.
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Heh. I’ve always considered Simple Minds (at least “proper” SM – that is, anything before John Hughes stepped in and blighted our world in so many ways) to be pure and simple – and in the very best sense of the word – Prog. That is, they started very clearly and sharply as hard prog, and then sadly mutated album by album toward Jim Kerr’s apparent-only-in-hindsight end-game of becoming U2, because that’s where the $$$ seemed to be at the time. Losing Forbes along the way was just collateral damage, particularly if it facilitated the evolution of Simple Minds into $imple Mind$…
I should mention that the above comes from a guy who doesn’t hate U2 nearly as much as I know you do :) I mean, I revile Bono like the leprous rotting self-obsessed dingleberry** he is, but Joshua Tree is overall, still and yet, a worthwhile album to own, with several highlights I even now occasionally toss in a playlist.
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The RAHB! – Such colorful language so early in the morning! But I have to admit, you made me laff! But what you deem Prog I would call Art Rock instead. Prog to me is about technique more than intent. Art Rock is less aimed at showmanship and musical preening, and more at vibe and intellectual intent. The actual intellectual content of a lot of Prog is at junior high level! Tolkien stuff!
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There is so little progrock that is anything to do with Tolkien (thankfully, I might add). Art Rock is a good term, although for me that included Van de Graaf, [early] XTC, Magazine, Henry Cow, etc – a whole range of prog, experimental and postpunk bands. Anyway, we’re all agreed how good Simple Minds were!
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Rupert – I find Prog adjacent to Art Rock; both could have banks of synths, but the differences to me are profound. I still need to hear Van der Graaf Generator! Hammill’s vocal turns on “Exposure” were really something and yet 44 years later I sit here still having not hears a note! Life’s too short… and more music budget wouldn’t have hurt any.
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I beg to differ! I’m a hardcore an unapologetic prog fan, having cut my teeth of Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Van der Graaf, Gentle Giant, and all sorts of other stuff that certain schools of thought love to disparage. Art rock to me is the likes of XTC and Talking Heads, love that stuff and Magazine and plenty of cool 80s & late 70s fare, but I’m afraid Simple Minds never did much of anything for me. It sure sounds like they did this fellow wrong, though.
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Big Mark – I’m a Crim head with a toehold for Yes in my Record Cell. Their early days were spent defining Prog, for certain, but by the Bruford years had pivoted to what I’d call Art Rock. I have “Drama” even in the DLX RM with bonus tracks, but would buy a cheap CD of “Close To The Edge” if it manifested. I use to own that as well as “The Yes Album,” “Fragile,” “Yesshows,” “Going For The One,” and “Tormato” on LP in my Prog Years as a teen. My wife has bought the Pink Floyd and Genesis on the racks. I own three ELP CDs. One given me by Ron who could not believe I didn’t have “Tarkus.” “Side one” is Crimson quality at least. A shame about “side two.” ELP has the puerile lyrical content I’ve alluded to. I can enjoy “Trilogy,” which I bought when it hit the silver disc. I also bought “Brain Salad Surgery” when it first came out on CD to see if they eliminated the infamous random wave fadeout between “side one” and “side two.” spoiler: they didn’t! I think their best moment is “Toccata” which attains a Crimson-like viciousness that really works for me, but the rest of the album hurts. sidebar: I once went to a piano recital where the pianist played a Ginastera piece and they must all sound that hellbent! I thought on BSS it was a case of Emerson hot-rodding things up but the acoustic pianist we dsaw played with the same blistering intensity that Emerson brought to his organ and synths. It’s doubtlessly all there on the score!
I can’t imagine anyone I know not responding to Simple Minds 2nd through 7th albums! If all I had to listen to was “Real To Real Cacophony” through “Sparkle In The Rain” I’d die a happy man.
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Adjacent is fine… nowt to do with banks of synthesizers though, more that postpunk allowed keyboards back in to the band, after the awful guitar/drums/bass/vocal line-ups playing bad pub rock in the name of punk. I recommend Still Life by Van der Graaf Generator, or if you like angst his solo post-divorce album Over is a real tearjerker and not proggy in the slightest!
>
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While I certainly understand your intention in preferring that moniker, sadly, the term “Art Rock” was co-opted by the Kansas/Styx/Rush** crowd back in the 80s/90s to describe a whole slew of stuff which was considered “aspirational” (at least by the meager AOR standards of the day – “Whoah dude! My Miiiind is Bloooown”) but lacked the “boundary pushing” aspects of e.g. Yes or ELP or KC,. Wild, meandering, envelope-expanding sonic vistas (Close to the Edge) in the case of the former, or extreme classically influenced noodlings (Pictures at an Exhibition, Tarkus) in the case of the second, and an amazing swath of fusion-y influences and experimental explorations in the last of course.
At this late date, and with all rawk classifications so blurred and degraded, terminology preferences really come down to “a hint of flavor” rather than any precise or well-defined terms. To me, Prog was more about the “meandering and noodling while trying to find some new sonic or creative avenue of expression” (and usually failing), while Art Rock (at least based on the bands labeled as such by the fans who listen to them) was more about pretentiously TRYING to sound prog while firmly sticking to the MOR (Middle of the Radio) rut so effectively trailblazed a decade or more before.
The awesome thing about Sons and Fascination (and their other very early material) is that it fairly BOGGLES THE MIND that they were produced by a supposedly PROFIT SEEKING ENTITY. Its akin to A Walk Across the Rooftops. I mean, WHO did they think their market was. Us, obviously, but we were very few and very poor at the time….
Well (and to draw this discussion back to its original focus), as I said, Mr. Kerr eventually answered the question of his true priorities in no uncertain terms. Money talks, and Derek walks!
** Lumping Rush in here seems harsh, even to me; but despite the fact that they were always clearly the “Wolverine” of MOR (“I’m the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn’t very nice…”) they never truly pushed – or seemed particularly interested in pushing – the creative boundaries of AOR. Even 2112, their album-length magnum opus, was just excellently-crafted “more of the same”. God Love ‘Em.
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The RAHB! – Fascinating, Captain. Art Rock for me was sprouted from The Velvet Underground’s seeds. That band push boundaries hard in terms of musical creation and lyrical subject matter, yet I would never thing to call it Prog. Prog came slightly later and usually a Mellotron® was involved! The Art Rock of the VU got it’s next jolting infusion of growth by Roxy Music, who were clearly inspired by them and had their own Cale factor in Eno. Their “Lou Reed” was Bryan Ferry, who took his visual Pop Art training and applied it to Rock music much as Reed did with his literary training. At that point even Bowie, who was meat and potatoes in comparison and had been aware of the VU early on, had to stand up and take notice. Maybe thr VU wasn’t a singular event? Perpahs this was a school of thought all could participate in? Eventually co-opting Eno to use as his catalyst-slash-booster-rocket. Allowing him to move into the Art Rock space fully with “Low.” Though he had pushed hard enough in that direction on his own with “STATIONTOSTATION.” Whose title track’s startling collage of disparate moods juxtaposed together really sounded like early Roxy Music, now that we consider it in that light.
Back to SM; with bands having member attrition, the undeniable truth is that as you lose members, your share [and control] gets more powerful even as the pool of vitality shrinks! There’s lots of pitfalls to that train of thought.
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I never once heard the term “art rock” applied to the likes of Kansas, Styx and Rush!
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Big Mark – I think of Art Rock as being inspired by artistic disciplines outside of music. It isn’t personal or confessional. It tends towards abstraction. It’s not made to make you popular with women. Styx and Kansas were midwestern US bands trying to be Prog by my reckoning. Rush started as hard rock then got Proggier. Eventually going New Wave before circling back. Art Rock sometimes lives in the liminal spaces between Prog and New Wave.
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My recollection from the late 70s is of art rock being applied to the likes of Talking Heads, XTC, Eno, Velvets, maybe Beefheart, and then some postpunk fare. Earlier, the terms art rock and prog had been used somewhat interchangeably, but prog rock was more or less codified as a genre by the time the likes of Styx and Kansas emerged, and I certainly don’t recall those midwestern outfits or heavier bands like Rush having appeal to the artsy crowd.
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I have to say that in the UK the likes of Styx and Kansas were regarded as MOR bands playing a slick pop version of rock. For me and many others Roxy Music were great until Eno left. Bowie was just busy being Bowie: for me the Berlin trilogy [yes, i know, not all recorded in Berlin] were standout albums. Art Rock, if you want to use the term, is about being different, not mainstream. Early Simple Minds is mostly a fascinating Scottish take on krautrock, filtered through punk.
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Rupert – Filtered through Punk…but also Funk! Forbes bass lines made it seem like Bootsy Collins had been dropped into the whitest music possible. And therein lay the compelling paradox!
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No, those early SM albums have a beat, a rhythm (sometimes even a dance rhythm) but they are funkless… it’s all angles and ice-cold synthesizers and guitars. [compoare with talking heads, who got ‘the funk’ with their big band version later on). I might go with SM having some soul tho.
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This is the problem with a discussion of Art Rock … everyone has their own definition of it!
For me (just to muddy the waters further) that term was used when I felt a band was deliberately going for a higher aesthetic/creative peak than mainstream bands, so with very rare exceptions bands that had zero chance of charting that I liked were “Art Rock” and “Prog” was ELP in particular, but also similar noodly bands with prolonged live solos.
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chasinvictoria – If you think that “Art Rock” has been a hot potato of vigorous discussion, imagine the internal struggle I’ve had… for many decades, in attempting to define “New Romantic” or “Glam Rock!” After years of struggle, struggle, I’ve come to see those as scenes rather than genres after gaining insight on the matter from JT.
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I love Simple Minds.
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Pamela Noland: Welcome to the comments! Well, you’ve got plenty of company here. They are the band that I get the most from, even if I have to give chunks of their career a pass. What’s best is so overwhelmingly great that it makes up for any missteps I count.
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