Customer Reviews

Sparkle in the Rain

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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Americans don't have any clue as to how good -- and how huge -- Simple Minds were. I was a GI in Germany when this brilliant album came out and I first saw Simple Minds in concert. They were big in Europe then -- a full year before "Don't You Forget About Me" -- the show was great, and singer Jim Kerr was everything you could want in a front man. (No wonder the Pretenders' Chrissy Hynde snapped him up!) Like U2, Simple Minds at their peak had an original, atmospheric sound...a keen taste for effective bombast...a deep, sincere spiritual mooring...and songs that mattered and made you want to sing along. This album is packed full of them -- from the urgent, pounding cadences of "Up on the Catwalk" to the seductive pulse of "Waterfront" to the full-throttle abandon of "Kick Inside of Me." Both "New Gold Dream" and "Sparkle in the Rain" have held up exceedingly well over the last 15+ years, and I strongly recommend starting with either of these albums rather than the Glittering Prize best-of collections. Both CDs hang together well and contain wonderful cuts you can't get anywhere else. To listen to Sparkle in the Rain makes me feel 19 and idealistic again (I'm 36 and semi-idealistic). It also captures so much of what made rock so exciting in the early 80s. It wasn't just about haircuts, attitudes and raincoats. It was about still believing that music matters and can move mountains. No matter how jaded you think you are, one listen to "Sparkle" will give you a jolt to the soul you won't soon forget.

Released two years after 1982's beautiful and synth-slick New Gold Dream, Sparkle in the Rain continues that earlier record's spiritual overtones while capturing Scotland's Simple Minds at a turn in their evolution and the height of their creativity. The next few years would see the band reap the rewards of their years of hard work through the release of such enjoyable and more straightforward commercial hits as "Don't You Forget About Me," "Alive and Kicking," and others, and who could blame them. But it was Sparkle in the Rain that caught the essence of the band. Like a newly fashioned diamond, it is utterly unique and intense, and it could only have come from Messrs. Kerr, Burchill, Forbes, McNeil, and Gaynor, -- Scottish sons all with a taste for the epic and the North in their veins. Even 14 years after its release, the album is charged with a pure and fresh urgency fueled by McNeil's soaring keyboard tapestry, Burchill's ethereal and razor sharp guitar, Gaynor's crashing, Godzilla-has-come drumming, and Forbe's pounding heartbeat bass. Enmeshed in all this is Kerr singing lyrics more powerful for their imagery than for their meaning, but all delivered persuasively and, again, urgently, emotionally, truthfully. This is a record with its manifold ripped off, with its pistons pounding at dizzying speeds and heights. One can almost feel the heat and light, the expansive blue warmth of Scottish skies and a ride through Heaven. And it is glorious!

Simple Minds came closer than ever before to all-out rocking on this album. They do rock here, but they still exhibit skillfully played musical shadings. Highly inventive, underrated guitarist Charlie Burchill steps forward and rocks, but not without his rhythmic subtlety. At the time, this album was criticized for being poorly mixed and sounding muddy, but I quite like that thick din of sound. I haven't heard the remaster, so I hope they haven't botched it.

"Up on the Catwalk" kicks things off with rumbling thunder and haunting keyboards. One of SPARKLE's best songs despite borrowing the already overdone U2 theme "I'll be there tonight." Singer Jim Kerr delivers a fantastically wordy vocal that moves into improvisation towards the end of the song.

"Book of Brilliant Things" is good but not my favorite, although it grows on you with that catchy guitar hook.

"Speed Your Love To Me" and "Waterfront" are the album's glorious centerpieces. Simply brilliant and uplifting (and totally rockin'!)

"East at Easter" is a slow burner that builds with subtle intensity.

"Street Hassle" is one of Lou Reed's best songs and SM actually improve on the original, giving it a smoother, more organic quality. Fantastic orchestration. And, let's face it, Kerr has a much better voice than Reed. Lou must've approved because he sings (or, rather, speaks) on SM's "This Is Your Land" from STREET FIGHTING YEARS a few years later.

"White Hot Day" - not the best, but still a good song with musings about "time."

"'C' Moon Cry Like A Baby" is another favorite. This one has an infectious swing.

"The Kick Inside Me" is the hardest rocking song on the album.

"Shake Off The Ghosts" is floating serenity. Keyboardist Michael McNeil, so integral to the whole album, really takes this instrumental to a place of wonderment. A beautiful way to finish.

It's wonderful to hear an album that rocks without banging you over the head with feedback, distortion and the like as so many bands do today. People who call this the start of their U2-style bombastic phase are really missing the point.

1984 was the year the post-punk darlings across The Pond grew up ... well, maybe not The Cure who, upon releasing its babbling, tantrum-filled "The Top" that year, would continue to waddle back toward infancy. The Psychedelic Furs came out with "Mirror Moves," adding a polish to its sneer; Echo & the Bunnymen dabbled in orchestral maneuvers on "Ocean Rain;" The Smiths arrived to fill a college-circuit Elvis niche; and U2 hired Brian Eno to babysit the band in the studio to great effect. Yet, in retrospect, perhaps the finest moment was instigated by the genre-hopping Simple Minds, who on "Sparkle in the Rain" would find their sound, then quickly be eclipsed by U2, whose frontman (future pope Bono) shared a similar singing style with Jim Kerr.

Rediscovering the album a dozen years or so since I lost my original cassette, I am blown away by how much is going on in these songs -- especially the first three tracks ("Up on the Catwalk," "Book of Brilliant Things" and "Speed Your Love to Me") -- yet how flawless and contemporary it sounds. The band's previous release, "New Gold Dream," demonstrated the band's ability to carve out emotional soundscapes, but it lacked the energy and swagger that "Sparkle" spills through the speakers. By 1984, SM was an accomplished band that had dabbled in punk, art rock, synth and disco, and already had six studio albums under its belt, so it makes sense the band should outshine its contemporaries on No. 7. Yet, it's not the musicianship alone; there is a sense of earnestness here, a Walt Whitman "yawp," if you will, that is lacking in other releases of the time, as well as any other Simple Minds release. Subsequent albums came off too grandiose; and on prior releases, Kerr either lacked confidence or purposely subdued his vocals.

If you like contemporary bands inspired by the "Eighties sound" -- The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party to name a few -- this is the pinnacle of what they're trying to recapture. And when you pick this up and spin it around in your mind, you'll find they're not even coming close.

All things arc. Stars start as debris and end as debris, and somewhere in the middle they burn ever so bright. Sparkle in the Rain is when Simple Minds are at their brightest. It finishes what New Gold Dream started. Just genius. Plain and simple genius.

As a dedicated listener of post-punk new wave music during the golden days of KROQ in Pasadena, CA (late 1970's until early 1990's), the Simple Minds stood out as the perfect balance between aggressive guitar rock and smooth synthesizer melody. Sparkle in the Rain is one of their finest, most confident works. I'd forgotten about my new wave habit for about 10 years and recently rediscovered it. Hearing this album (and also New Gold Dream) was like finding your favorite toy from childhood. Every single track was a gem. I listened to this album five times when I found it again. To the record company-- this album needs to be re-released!!!

Like all the other reviewers (who have such good music taste I might add!) I completely agree that this is one of the best albums of the 80's. This is passionate, urgent rock n' roll. When Jim Kerr sings 'just my imagination...' in 'Speed Your Love To Me' it gives me shivers. Also, the keyboard textures and musical backdrop to 'Up On The Catwalk' give this song an urgency and passion which makes me want to hear it again and again (I love the name checks in this one). Other classics include 'Waterfront', 'C Moon Cry Like A Baby' and 'East At Easter' - in fact the whole album is brilliant. 'Sparkle In The Rain' was released in the same year as U2's 'The Unforgettable Fire' and you can hear how much Simple Minds influenced U2's sound and production. This is the Simple Minds album to seek out as a bridge between the New Wave/synth textures of 'New Gold Dream' and the more straight ahead rock of 'Once Upon A Time'. Also highly recommended is '89's 'Street Fighting Years' and the recent 'Neapolis'. You won't be disappointed with 'Sparkle In The Rain' - like a previous reviewer I also agree it's one of the Top 25 '80's albums. Simple Minds are a very underrated rock group and you should not miss out on this one.

"Sparkle in the Rain" tends to get overlooked due to the successive release and success of "Once Upon a Time", which is an enormous injustice. As good as "Once Upon a Time" was, it was a slight letdown after "Sparkle in the Rain", which contains some of the best of Simple Mind's work: "Waterfront", "Speed Your Love to Me", "East at Easter", "Shake Off the Ghosts" and the incredible "The Kick Inside of Me". If you are interested in investigating Simple Minds, start with their "Best Of", then head directly for "Sparkle in the Rain". All the roads intersect here.

The songs on this record are in general excellent, but the first four are classics -- four of the greatest songs recorded in the 1980s: "Up on the Catwalk", "Book of Brilliant Things", "Speed Your Love to Me" and "Waterfront" are incredible and the record is worth getting for these tracks alone.

Often records I one loved 20 years ago don't hold up well to the test of time. Book of Love's records, Killing Joke's "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns" and several others fall into this category. That said, I bought "Sparkle in the Rain" on vinyl when it first came out way back in the mid-1980s. After being introduced to Simple Minds via "New Gold Dream" (on limited edition gold vinyl even...) this was a welcome addition to my record collection. I remember being amazed at the driving rhythms and the powerful vocals. I hadn't listened to or even thought of the record until a few weeks ago when someone off-handedly mentioned Simple Minds telling me "I'm alive and kicking." That made me seek out and replace my long-missing LP with this CD. I'm glad I did and am enjoying it right now as I take a break from writing a thesis.