Themes for Great Cities: A New History of Simple Minds

by Graeme Thomson

'Nobody owes us anything, but the Simple Minds story has been too condensed. After Live Aid and 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' there hasn't been quite the credit for those first few records. I think they contain some really special music. I can hear the flaws but there's something about the spirit and imagination in them that feels good. They draw from such a wide range of influences . . . but the spirit of it was always Simple Minds.' Jim Kerr, to the author

An illuminating new biography of one of Britain's biggest and most influential bands, written with the full input and cooperation of Simple Minds, shedding new light on their dazzling art-rock legacy.

Themes for Great Cities features in-depth new interviews with original band members Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill, Mick MacNeil and Derek Forbes, alongside key figures from within their creative community and high-profile fans such as Bobby Gillespie, James Dean Bradfield and Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite. The book reclaims and revivifies the magnificence of Simple Minds' pioneering early albums, from the glitchy Euro-ambience of Real to Real Cacophony and Empires and Dance to the pulsing, agitated romance of Sons and Fascination, New Gold Dream and beyond.

Emerging in 1978 from Glasgow's post-punk scene, Simple Minds transitioned from restless art-rock to electro futurism, mutated into passionate pop contenders and, finally, a global rock behemoth. They have sold in the region of 60 million records and remain a worldwide phenomenon. The drama of their tale lies in these transformations and triumphs, conflicts and contradictions.

Themes for Great Cities tells the inside story of a band becoming a band. Inspiring, insightful and enlightening, it celebrates the trailblazing music of one of Britain's greatest groups.
 

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction

368 pages, Paperback

Published October 3, 2023

Reviews

[Ray Smillie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will confess that the last Simple Minds album I bought was Sparkle in the Rain, an album that left me disappointed. Yes, I am a classic "I preferred your early stuff" type but I was still aware of their later output via singles and actually didn't mind them. However, for the fans they lost, they got a substantial number of new fans.

My favourite album remains Empires and Dance.

As for this book written by Graeme Thomson, this is both well researched and equally well written, with contributions from all the band members in the 70s and 80s, with the exception of Mel Gaynor who simply didn't want any part of it.

What I admire about Simple Minds is that they always progressed, changing their sound for each album, even if a minority did not appreciate it.

Very much enjoyed this.

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple Minds were the art school band who never went to art school. Indeed they were a bunch of autodidacts from a tough neighbourhood of Glasgow. Inspired by punk they had a fascinating and trail blazing early career.

Before the stadium years, Simple Minds were a great band. The run of albums from Real to Real Cacophony (1979) to New Gold Dream (1982) is magnificent. A perfect melding of experimentation, innovation and pop music. Sparkle in the Rain (1984) was pretty good but the rot had set in as Simple Minds seem to want to go head to head with U2.
It’s no surprise that Graeme Thomson primarily focuses on this early period in Themes for Great Cities: A New History of Simple Minds (2021).

Despite loving much of the music during their imperial phase, I realise I knew relatively little about the band members. This book is an interesting delve into their formative years and beyond. That said, it’s hard to imagine any non-fans getting too much out of the book.

So, one for the fans, and if that’s you then this is worth a read.

4/5



'Nobody owes us anything, but the Simple Minds story has been too condensed. After Live Aid and 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' there hasn't been quite the credit for those first few records. I think they contain some really special music. I can hear the flaws but there's something about the spirit and imagination in them that feels good. They draw from such a wide range of influences ... but the spirit of it was always Simple Minds.' Jim Kerr, to the author

An illuminating new biography of one of Britain's biggest and most influential bands, written with the full input and cooperation of Simple Minds, shedding new light on their dazzling art-rock legacy.

Themes for Great Cities features in-depth new interviews with original band members Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill, Mick MacNeil and Derek Forbes, alongside key figures from within their creative community and high-profile fans such as Bobby Gillespie, James Dean Bradfield and Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite. The book reclaims and revivifies the magnificence of Simple Minds' pioneering early albums, from the glitchy Euro-ambience of Real to Real Cacophony and Empires and Dance to the pulsing, agitated romance of Sons and Fascination, New Gold Dream and beyond.

Emerging in 1978 from Glasgow's post-punk scene, Simple Minds transitioned from restless art-rock to electro futurism, mutated into passionate pop contenders and, finally, a global rock behemoth. They have sold in the region of 60 million records and remain a worldwide phenomenon. The drama of their tale lies in these transformations and triumphs, conflicts and contradictions.

Themes for Great Cities tells the inside story of a band becoming a band. Inspiring, insightful and enlightening, it celebrates the trailblazing music of one of Britain's greatest groups.

[Allan Heron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Graeme Thomson has written a number of very fine biographies and this sits up very nicely alongside them.

This is slightly different though. Thomson lets his fanboy loose in a way that he doesn't in his other books; that sounds kinda horrendous but it works well in the context of this book.

Also, this book is focused on the band's initial years up to the mega-selling Once Upon A Time; what followed isn't ignored but it's no more than a coda.

Absolutely vital reading for any Simple Minds fans, and recommended for any music fan.

As an aside, all the band members come over well in print, with great self-awareness of their situation.

[Eugene Gallagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple Minds were an important band for me in my youth, and this book helped remind this time after a long period of being a bit fed up with them. The Minds, or some of them, came from Toryglen, in Glasgow, one of my old stomping grounds for a while, and indeed from my old school, so their existence as I was getting into music , just after punk, was an affirmation of us. However I didn’t think much of their first album, so they might have one of the many things you mess with and then discard, but with the step changes of their second and especially their third albums, they came to represent sense of both a reaching and a sense of mystery, sometimes derided as ‘partial bollocks’, but which for an open/pretentious/intellectually curious young thing did hit the spot. I saw them A Lot in those years, more than any other band. Thomson’s book does ‘remystify’ their music as the Mojo cover blurb suggests, while also suggesting to me why their early work resonated for me a way that that later work, when they actually wrote more coherent ‘songs’ did not. It also shows the band were well aware of their strengths and weaknesses, if sometimes in retrospect. Also, it captures that youthful sense that even if you came from an overlooked part of a seemingly unfashionable town a group of young people could look both to their place and to way beyond it to grab as much of it as they could and from it fashion their art and their future. Thomson’s prose can be a bit overcooked when describing the music and its impetus, but you forgive this because it somehow parallels the band’s reach exceeding, as well as sometimes successfully grasping, gloriously.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a lot of music books and this is one of the best. It also happens to be about one of my all time favorite bands. If you’re a fan, especially of their earlier work, you’ll enjoy this.

[Joe Kucharski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Themes for Great Cities tells the inside story of a Scottish art school band who never went to art school and instead became a sensation. A band who crossed over the grayed-out boundaries between prog and pop; anthem rock and dancehall jams. A band who never set out to stake a true claim but discovered international favor from Glasgow to Sydney to Philadelphia. A band that might have sung about life in a day but continues to be alive and kicking. A band that dares us to don’t forget about. Themes for Great Cities is progression that builds from intro to verse but takes it to the bridge too soon… and before Real Life.

Graeme Thomson is a musical journalist and author with the chops to back his CV. Thomson does much more than simply transcribe interviews or basely parrot Wikipedia. He gets in with the band. He explores their history, the band’s thoughts and attitudes, and their relevance both contemporaneously as well as true back-in-the-day authenticity. Thomson also throws on a flurry of clashing expressions that at first seems rudely jarring but eventually settles into a unique musical cadence of his own.

Simple Minds emerged from Glasgow's post-punk scene in the dying scream of the 70s and jumped into the Euro-pop craze of the fabulous 80s with a tight dance pulse that erupted into arena-filing anthems. Thomson touches on it all. Perhaps even too deeply. And by slowly focusing on the “life before” - particularly that of lead singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill - the get-to-the-good-part of their story, specifically their Live Aid performance aided and abetted by a certain movie soundtrack hit, then rushes by in what seems like, well, thirty frames a second.

Themes for Great Cities is not sugary and gilded. Nor does it possess tabloid-tell-alls of addiction and recovery. Thomson instead focuses on music making craft. The sweat and inspiration of trying to make it, the anxiety of thinking you’ve made it, and then the management in avoiding a creative plateau. He swims between narrative tales and quotes and manifests the band into recollecting a specific session in October 1980 or the exhaustion felt in the winter of 1983. Thomson, like Simple Minds on all occasions, succeeds. And flourishes.

Themes for Great Cities is the perfect art-style book that merrily sings and flows; it allows Kerr and Burchill necessary pauses only to then accelerate over gaps. And this all about illuminating a band that cannot be fully pushed into a single genre. Thomson can be as elusive as Kerr’s lyrics and as driving as a Burchill solo. An essential read for any serious Simple Minds fan. And, admittedly, one that could have easily gone deeper into their discography as no one wants the song to end.


Hum on over to Read @ Joe's for this review and a playlist full of others.

[Paul Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve had a pretty volatile relationship with Simple Minds, it’s almost like sticking with an abusive lover. The developing period which this book concentrates on the most 1977 - 1985 which in most modern successful groups would be considered a lifetime , was immense, I remember discovering “live In The City Of Light” after watching the 1988 Mandela Concert and then delving deep dive no questions asked. I bought Empires and Dance, what an insane contrast! But I was hooked. I then went to Sixth Form College and fell in with the post punk/alt crowd but to be honest we were 5 years late but we didn’t care! Simple Minds deemed very unfashionable as they’d “sold out” especially hitting number one with the Celtic folk song which is effectively Belfast Child. I saw the 1989 Street Fighting Years Tour and the subsequent Real Life Tour and it was fantastic all the way. Then it all dipped massively Good News From The Next World completely unforgettable, Neapolis was an attempt to capture old Glories with Pete Walsh ( New Gold Dream) back in production and Derek Forbes back on bass. Massive misfire. Then it was all session musicians and collectives. Although I loved Cry as an album it ,was messy. The Jim Kerr/Charlie Burchill nucleus never fully recovered until the Genius move to a 5x5 tour to showcase their earlier work and seal their legacy. Now their work is lauded again,and despite a recent two mediocre albums they keep Alive and Kicking…….my criticism is valid as the last album was phoned in during the pandemic in the sense that it was all bits and bobs and two years in the making it’s just a bit meh. Yet still I’ll champion this band as despite the highs and low s they’ve kept me going! Graeme has captured that essence in his writing and made Minds cool again. Reading through I find myself listening to those early albums with new ears. Fantastic!

[Alex Sarll]

The title and the statement of intent suggested a book with the right approach to the assignment - one that, like Michael Bracewell on Roxy or Mark Andrews with the Sisters, and with far more justification here, would dig into the early years in depth, and then fuck everything else off to an extended postscript. Unlike Andrews, at least, Thomson's introduction is at pains to establish that he's not dissing the stadium rock years or whatever they've been doing this century, he's simply not writing that book. Whether sincerely mistaken or simply politic, I could forgive that; what I couldn't cope with was the sense of someone trying to write like Paul Morley, but coming off more like Mojo putting on airs:
"The impeccable Mick MacNeil, the future's dream of a classicist, introduces subtly insistent melodies, ambiguous textures on the keyboard. He is an avatar of good taste, an engineer in sound, shunning faux-orchestral bombast for spare formalism. The results are forensic yet instinctive, a relentless exploration of possibilities."

As I often do when on the verge of abandoning a book, I flicked forward to see if there was just a little throat-clearing trouble, but no; I lighted first on some leaden stuff about the band's disappointment with their debut, and then an enthusiastic analysis of the lyrics to Empires And Dance which mainly served to put me off Empires And Dance. So I thought I'd better call the whole thing off before it managed to spoil New Gold Dream too.

Of course, giving the third quote in your opening salvo - and later, a whole sodding chapter - to that nasty, talentless wee shite Bobby Gillespie was probably a sign that I should have got out even sooner.

[Jamie McLendon · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
Right when I found myself in a major early Simple Minds phase, this book showed up, so the timing was impeccable. Theme for Great Cities focuses on the early years of Simple Minds, up through major mainstream US radio success with Once Upon a Time. I am a fan through Sparkle In the Rain, so this hit home for me.

It offers a good glimpse of how the band started, and the way the song writing on the records played out. I share the opinion of others that they pretty much lost it once bassist Derek Forbes was let go, but there's arguments for it starting with the early departure of drummer Brian McGee.

My only complaint is that writer Graeme Thomson is so much enamored of the group, that his hero worship gets in the way. Singer Jim Kerr seems extremely grounded and thoughtful about the group's legacy, and his pride in the albums that provided their foundation comes through. I even capitulated to his opinion that maybe Steve Lilywhite wasn't the best guy to handle Sparkle In the Rain.

Recommended listening: Real to Real Cacophony, Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call

[Alistair Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually bought and read the hardback edition, not Kindle, but it's not listed as an option on GoodReads.

A very absorbing read about a band which was the soundtrack to my years at uni in Glasgow, 1977-81. Excellent first source material although former members of the band did not fully cooperate with the author, which comes to my only (minor) criticism.

Thomson is a fan and has known the band for a long time and this was an authorised history of the halcyon years of the band, up to the release of Once Upon A Time in 1985. As a result there were some parts where a more objectively critical writer might have posed more challenging questions to Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill. There are power politics in any band, but the enforced departure of some members of the band were particularly ruthless and could have been explored further.

Highly recommended and had me digging out the early albums to put on the turntable as I read the book.

[Patrik Sampler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first two thirds of this book get five stars from me. There has never been any band like Simple Minds circa 1980/81. Regarding this period, Themes for Great Cities has sent me in a few new directions, and its coverage of Simple Minds' creative methods during this peak period is quite inspiring. I've always been biased toward the Forbes/MacNeil/McGee side of the band, but gained a new appreciation of Kerr/Burchill. Some of the lyrics were clarified; I had until reading this book heard the refrain to "Sons and Fascination" as a mondegreen: "My soft, warm lamb, send me money." (How wrong I was!) The energy of the writing keeps up with the energy of the music through the band's best period. It sags a bit around Sparkle in the Rain, as does the band. The cut-throat machinations during and after this album are quite depressing, actually, and don't give a flattering impression of the main protagonists. Derek Forbes should be proud to have gotten the boot when he did. It leaves his legend intact. Simple Minds might have stuck together and moved into even more adventurously creative territory, but instead they went the route of pablumy showbiz rock. The final score for the book: 4/5. It's no fault of the author, just the latter content -- except perhaps he might have quit the book with "Don't You Forget about Me."

[Alec Downie · Rating 3 out of 5]

By 1984 Simple Minds were arguably the best live band on the planet and their first 5 albums change the sound of music in the UK more than they ever get credited for, which this book goes a long way to redress.

It is a good sound biography and let down by being a touch fanboy, though to write about a complex set of relationships and evolving musical journey needed that.

For people that loved their earl albums this is a must but for those that joined when the hits arrived, it may be a tad tedious and lacking in the cliché of Sex , Drugs and Rock n Roll stories

I doubt we will ever truly know the real story but this does fill in many blanks or confirm or discredit assumptions, while raising more assumption.

Great life changing band, sound but not life changing read.

[Nathaniel Wrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable journey in time

As a teenager of the eighties, I grew up with Simple Minds as my soundtrack, first hearing the hits, then discovering the more Avant Garde early material. Graeme Thomson's biography of the band brilliantly captures their journey, providing an explanation for their unorthodox path. As can be common in rock stories, he occasionally strays into the pompous but that is a petty complaint for what is an impressive achievement.

[Álex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una biografía muy jugosa, en cuanto a datos, puntos de vista y sin rehuir ni conflictos ni otros temas, que abarca desde los inicios con Johnny and the Self Abusers hasta la eclosión con "Once Upon a Time". Reseña también contexto e influencias, y cabe destacar la rica prosa del autor, muy superior al estándar habitual en este tipo de ensayos. También me ha permitido recuperar y observar con mayor detalle los discos de los ochenta de la banda.

[Steve Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

rediscovery of a legendary band

Simple Minds have always been there. Never my favourite, but always in the mix. This book takes me back to them, then and now. Because their music is so evocative, they take me back to me too, then and now.

[Niamh Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the fans

Really enjoyable and such a trip down memory lane. Needed to be written and to highlight how good these guys are and were. Don't you forget about me because I certainly won't forget them. Thanks

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and comprehensive read covering Simple Minds from their early beginnings in 1977 and follow up to circa 1990. Later material up into the 2010s is included.
An absolutely engaging history of the seminal band. Highly recommended!

[Harold Good · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read, especially if you’re a “Simple Minds” fan, plenty of great information on the band and the main players. Just now and again it goes off in a mind numbing explanation on certain parts of the album. Despite this as a fan it was an enjoyable read.

[David Granger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhere there was a great story in here. But there was too much about how the author got the interviews and weird celebrity interludes to make it a classic biography. Shame.

[Aaron Badgley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written biography of the first half of Simple Minds career

[Kelvin Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent but have a review blog on this book coming soon(ish).

[Lee Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Throughly researched and well written bio about their rise to their eighties peak that wisely pretty much stops there

[Jim Mcmanus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Covers the early years, well. As success comes, the music is less interesting, and the book reflects this.

Kerr is fairly clear sighted about their history and mistakes made along the way.

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good read, There's a better Simple Minds book to be written but I don't know that it ever will be

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10

[William Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK read

[Christopher Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://www.thepensivequill.com/2024/...

[Liam Hair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic account of one of Scotland's most beloved bands from the past to the present and looking into the future

[Donald Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bot too much 'in the studio' for me ...