Simple Minds Album: “Neon Lights”

Bit of an oddity this one! Not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination but still "only a covers album" at it's core hence any chance of song writing originality is limited straight away. Some of the tracks stand out and show what kind of a band SM can be when they put their mind to it. "Dancing Barefoot", "Bring on the Dancing Horses" and "All Tomorrows Parties" make the album worthwhile. Unfortunately some of the other tracks lend a weakness to the project which cannot be masked, namely the Minds version of Joy Divisions' "Love Will Tear Us Apart" which seems to have been added as an afterthought and does not gel very well with the proceeding tracks. It's true that the Neapolis influence is felt in a lot of the covers, semi-techno beats and distorted vocals but considering the cover material this actually proves to be effective and brings something new to each of the now familiar tracks. Their rendition of Pete Shelley's "Homosapien" is a case in point. Still, as the note on the inside cover clearly states, the Minds wanted to experience life as a covers band once more. This is fine provided new material, which shows how original this band can be, is just around the corner. Go on, give it a listen.....

Cover records are nearly as disposable as live releases. There's a sense of diminished expectations before you even play the damn thing. Add to that a band's checkered history, and you have the non-event of Simple Minds' Neon Lights. Expectations are made to be confounded, and Neon Lights is a weird triumph, from its mix of the obvious (Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World", Echo's "Bring on the Dancing Horses") to the obscure (Roxy Music's "For Your Pleasure", the Human League's "Being Boiled"). You hear love and care in these songs, though Siimple Minds don't make the mistake of being slavish. ("Love Will Tear Us Apart" is a house remix!) The songs that seem the oddest fits are best: the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow Parties", Neil Young's "The Needle & the Damage Done", Kraftwerk's title track. The songs closest to their new wave heart are rethought, re-explored. Pete Shelley's "Homosapien" - once a cruiser's command - is now a slinky seduction. The Doors' "Hello I Love You", I song I've always hated, is a sexy Goth delight. And let it be officially told: no matter how hard you try, Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot" is impossible to ruin.

I get the sense from this album that Jim, Charlie and friends wanted to have a bit of fun and do something different here. By and large the covers on this album make SM sound like a garage band with a big budget, and having a blast playing with studio toys. My advice, sit back, suspend criticism and enjoy. SM are, in my opinion, a VERY original band. They have always had a unique sound that was always evolving, while remaining faithful to an enduring atmosphere of creative experimentation. It is lots of fun to hear covers of some of the tracks that lead to this approach. The selection of tunes is wonderfully diverse (The Doors, Human League and Joy Division...hard to believe they can even co-exist).

The sound on "Neon Lights" is reminiscent of the electronic approach that the band took on it's last album "Neopolis", a brilliant album, but on Neon Lights the results are less spectacular. "Dancing Barefoot" is the strongest track on here, and is really a great tune that has been reworked to great effect. Everything works here. The remainder of the songs aren't quite as cohesive. The techno beats and electronic effects distort and cloud up some of the songs. There are some other real standouts though: "The Man Who Sold the World", "Bring on the Dancing Horses" and "For Your Pleasure". The album seems to lack the usual SM ...originality. But it is an album of cover tunes,albeit one from an extremely original and creative band. Rather than get bogged down by the aesthetic quandry that this creates, the listener is best served by seeing "Neon Lights" as an informal SM album that offers a lot of insight into the band's influences. It would be unfair to compare this cd to their cds of original material. This is a fun cd, especially for SM fans. Enjoy it. SM sound like they are having a blast doing these covers, the listener would be well advised to do the same. In the meantime, we can wait for the next cd of originals and send hate mail to EMI for not releasing "Neopolis" stateside,and for being corporate wankers and not releasing "Our Secrets are the Same". Oh, and we can say thank you to Eagle Records for picking up SM.

Remember Simple Minds? They're the guys who did cool songs like "Alive and Kicking" and "Don't You (Forget About Me)" back in the 1980s. They've been around since the late 70s, and it shows, both in their looks and their skill. All of the cool bands are doing covers, from Tori Amos to Madonna, so is it any wonder that Simple Minds have decided to do the same with Neon Lights? It's not as though covers are new to Simple Minds. Way back in the days when they were scrawny and used to be known as Johnny and theSelf-Abusers, they would cover songs by Lou Reed, The Doors, and David Bowie. I guess they've decided to come around full-circle, now that it's trendy again.

Although this is a strong album overall, not all the tracks are that great. I skipped ahead to the next track while listening to "Hello I Love You," "Gloria," "Love Will Tear Us Apart," and "The Man Who Sold the World." "Love Will Tear Us Apart" seems like a particularly bad cover; Simple Minds turn it into a techno club song, and I just don't think it works. It makes the Joy Division goth classic both boring and commonplace.

However, the album does have several tracks which do shine. "Homosapien" and "Being Boiled" are quirky and interesting, "All Tomorrow's Parties" is a powerful reinterpretation of that ground-breaking Velvet Underground song, and "Neon Lights" is an interesting take on a Kraftwerk classic.

This cover album is nice, but I think I'd rather listen to Simple Minds performing original material. Hopefully, their new album, Our Secrets Are the Same, will soon be disentangled from its legal problems and released.

Simple Minds is one of the greatest bands ever to emerge from the U.K. So after more than 20 years and a dozen albums of original material, why redo music from other artists? If the band wants to let us know who influenced them, I'd rather READ about in an interview, than have them waste valuable studio time that could have been spent on another great album of originals.

With that said, how's the album? Reasonably good. The highlights are mostly tucked away in the second half, namely renditions of Neil Young's "The Needle & The Damage Done," Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties," and Human League's "Being Boiled." Each is interpreted in an interesting manner, while challenging preconceptions about Simple Minds' sound. Pete Shelly's "Homosapien," while close to the original, is such a great track it's a treat to hear anyone do it.

As for the rest of the album, some of the covers are rather pedestrian; The Doors' "Hello I Love You" tries to evoke a 'modern' sound, but really sounds more like a couple of soccer dads fooling around with Casio keyboards. Others songs seem chosen - predictably and pretentiously - for their snob/cool factor - i.e. material from critic's darlings like Bowie/Lou Reed/Patti Smith, etc. Simple Minds were big fans of early Genesis, so why not "out themselves" and do a cover of "Watcher of the Skies" or "Cinema Show?" That would be more interesting, and more revealing.

Thankfully, after this album Simple Minds turned out another great album of originals, 2002's "Cry." The band is one of the few that can consistently turn out good new material, so they should stick to that.