The name of this band was "Simple Minds"

Everybody agrees that the person who is now calling himself Michael Jackson can under no circumstance be the same person that appears on the sleeves and in the videos of "Off the Wall" and "Thriller". Something must have happened to him that made him suffer through the most hideous plastic sugery.
Did he really want to become somebody else? And was this somebody a white version of Diana Ross?

But even before Jackson started his transformation there was another pop-star whose mutation was vitually taking place before our eyes: Jim Kerr, the singer of The Simple Minds.
Is it humanly possible that somebody, somewhere in summertime can change his appearance AND his talent in a process of only three years?

I Travel

From the bleak and dry experiments of "Real to Real Cacophony" to the transcendent electronic euphoria of "Empires and Dance" the band suddenly emerged as if the best drugs of the world were finally kicking in.

From there they would expand their sound into epic, awe inspiring bliss. The joys of "Love Song", "In Trance as Mission" and "This Earth that you walk upon" along with the earlier european proto-disco of "I Travel" are still testament to a group of musicians who were clearly at the height of their game and at the right moment in time.
Along with the great Associates, the Scots were influential in creating a sound and an aesthetic that is still holding up today.

Celebrate


And then there was "New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)"! The album that washed over Europe with waves and waves of blissed out sound and euphoria. For a moment the Simple Minds were the best band in the world.

Sweat in Bullet

But Jim Kerr wanted to be somebody else! He wanted to be a rock-star. He wanted to be Bono Vox. He wanted to be married to a Pretender and to Patsi Kensit. He wanted to be fat.
And after the new gold years (81-82-83-84) had passed, like a prophecy from the song title, he became all that. With "Sparkle in the Rain" they had lost their spark.

I refused to see them live when they toured that album. But a friend of mine invited me, because he wanted to see The Waterboys, who were supposed to be the opening act. But they didn´t show up and we were witnessing the birth of a horrible, schlocky stadium-act instead. The name of this band was Simple Minds. The transformation was underway and it would be complete by 1985.