Music / New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)

Crashing beats and fantasy, setting sun in front of me...

New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) is the 1982 seminal fifth LP by Scottish rock band Simple Minds. Widely considered the group's finest achievement, the conception for the album came after the band's successful Australian tour with Icehouse, as they been under-the-radar until that point. Peter Walsh, who also produced fellow classic New Wave-Synth-Pop LPs Penthouse & Pavement by Heaven 17 and Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms - Some People Think It's Fun To Entertain by China Crisis, signed on as producer. In January 1982, before embarking on a short tour, the tracks "King Is White And In The Crowd", "Hunter And The Hunted" & "Promised You A Miracle" were penned; the latter proving highly influential on the album's soundscape. Recorded from spring to summer that year, the creative process went easy as the members bounced ideas off of each other whilst concocting melodies. The sole kink was the album's revolving door of drummers: Kenny Hyslop, who played on "Promised You A Miracle"; Mike Ogletree, who wrote the drum notes, then defected to Fiction Factory; and finally session musician Mel Gaynor, who became a Permanent Placeholder.

While the band had already been moving away from their initial Post-Punk sound since the start of the '80s, with both Empires and Dance and Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call incorporating elements of dance-driven New Wave Music, New Gold Dream marks the galvanization of these efforts, blending together their newfound sound with the newly-en-vogue Synth-Pop movement and the nascent Alternative Rock movement. This in turn would inform the more arena-oriented sound that Simple Minds would move into on their next album, Sparkle in the Rain.

The album was supported by three singles: "Someone Somewhere (In Summertime)", "Promised You A Miracle", and "Glittering Prize", with the title track also getting an Italian maxi single exclusively in 1983 when the band toured there that year.

Tracklist:

A Side

1. "Someone Somewhere In Summertime" (4:35)
2. "Colours Fly And Catherine Wheel" (3:49)
3. "Promised You A Miracle" (4:26)
4. "Big Sleep" (4:59)
5. "Somebody Up There Likes You" (4:58)

B Side

1. "New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)" (5:40)
2. "Glittering Prize" (4:33)
3. "Hunter And The Hunted" (5:54)
4. "King Is White And In The Crowd" (6:57)

Shine on, shine the tropes on me:

• Bowdlerise: Due to Communist anti-Christian censorship, the cross was removed◊ from the album cover in Yugoslavia, being replaced with a duplicate of the back of the sleeve.
• Genre-Busting: Simple Minds' sound on this album is an eclectic mix of New Wave, Alt Rock, and Synth-Pop compared to Sons And Fascination & Sister Feelings Call, which was more straightforward synth-driven New Wave.
• "Leaving the Nest" Song: "Big Sleep", in which the narrator describes having to leave a great friend behind in the "Big Sleep"^note almost certainly a death euphemism, and wishing they could see each other again.
  Where did you go?
  Immaculate friend
  For a lifetime I'm grateful
  And it's only seconds away
• Special Guest: "Hunted And The Hunted" has Herbie Hancock performing a synthesiser solo during the bridge.
• Unbuilt Trope: The album sounds similar to the Post-Rock-Alternative Rock scene of the late 80s/early 90s, despite being released in the apex of the U.K.'s New Wave & Synth-Pop movements; the only thing that gives it away as a product of its time is the slightly dated synths used throughout. Compared to many other artists of the time, who were focused on bouncy, catchy melodies for hit maxi singles often divorced from each other and whose albums lacked cohesion as a result, this album sets an unified atmosphere with its composition and aside from "Promised You A Miracle", features tracks with downbeat tempos unsuitable for dancing, making it an almost Spiritual Antithesis to the LPs of the era.

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