Simple Minds
Once Upon A Time

Once you've reached the roof of the world, what remains to be done?
Fall, obviously.

There are those who tumble gracefully, get back up, dust themselves off, and begin to rise again, and then there are those, like the Simple Minds, who hit the ground while still dreaming of flying. "Once Upon A Time" is the emptiness of the fall. We are not talking about a poor album; indeed, it is precisely its explicit quality that gives an illusion of flight to the boys from Glasgow, after a complex and overwhelming musical path, from the confused beginnings of "Life In A Day" to the creative peak of "New Gold Dream"; here our heroes are not content with having created a masterpiece praised by critics and the public. They want to achieve the sound they have in their simple minds: powerful, clear, wide.

They achieve it in the eight tracks of this album, dedicated to the widest possible audience, the European one that appreciates the new-wave sound, and the American one that will hum the anthem-like "Alive And Kicking". And in this attempt to please everyone, including themselves, the Simple Minds will lose sight of the creative core and will disperse their energies in concerts and increasingly grand events. But seen from the outside, in a detached and decontextualized way, the album has a lot of good, a sign that the quality of Kerr, Burchill, and McNeil is not to be underestimated.

From the title track to "Wish You Were Here", compositional ideas unfold freely, while "Ghostdancing", "Sanctify Yourself", and "Oh Jungleland" are pure energy; the entire album is a weave of guitar and synth solutions, with the vocals serving as accompaniment, but it is Mel Gaynor's percussion that dominates the sound. An anthem to unfettered creativity, to the infinite possibilities of music, which nonetheless preludes the inventive emptiness and the detachment of McNeil, after the release of the excellent but cold "Street Fighting Years" 3 years later.