As we noted last month in our conversation with Simple Minds’ frontman Jim Kerr, the ‘80s nostalgia circuit is the stuff of his nightmares. The co-founder and frontman of Simple Minds has been on a creative tear, breathing new life into his band with a brand new album that’s already being hailed as one of the best of their nearly forty-year existence. Big Music, out digitally on November 4 in the US (and November 24 on vinyl), is the band’s sixteenth album and is already garnering heaps of praise and comparisons to their experimental, moody, synth rock roots.
The Glaswegian band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, reinventing themselves out of necessity, evolving creatively as all good bands should, and doing their best to escape from the orbit of their “breakthrough” hit, the iconic ‘80s anthem “Don’t You (Forget About Me).”
While that song may have cemented Simple Minds’ place in popular culture, the band’s storied career spans sixteen albums—six of which were recorded before a single scene of The Breakfast Club was filmed.
That the melancholic, new wave sound they helped pioneer is popular again is evident in Big Music collaborator Iain Cook of fellow Scottish alternative rockers, Chvrches. Thanks in part to this new blood, Jim Kerr feels that Big Music represents a musical career that’s coming full circle. Critics are already declaring it the worthy successor to their innovative classic albums; that’s no surprise, either, as Big Music taps into the collective talents of Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call producers Steve Hillage, Steve Osborne, and Andy Wright.
Jim Kerr is ready to add another fascinating chapter to Simple Minds’ story. Big Music feels like the work of a band emerging from a commercial and creative lull. Jim had much to say about the album’s genesis, his excitement about a new outpouring of creativity, and the journey he’s been on to overcome a strange sort of success.
Read the full interview with Jim Kerr here—and enter to win in the comments below by citing the track on the band’s new LP, Big Music you’re finding to be a new favorite—a future classic, if you will. Three enthusiastic winners with a U.S. mailing address will be chosen a week from today, Tuesday, 12/16. Winners will be notified directly via email.
