super groovy delicious bite: sparkle in the rain

Simple Minds embraced a thunderous live rock sound during the recording of this monumental book of brilliant things. After the critical and commercial success of 'New Gold Dream', the band found that their performances to huge crowds in large European venues led to a shift in their approach.

Jim Kerr reveals: "We went off for six months, toured, came back and wrote these new songs feeling very chuffed and smug. But a week later we found out all we were doing was writing 'New Gold Dream' part two, which was really awful. It was big problem at the beginning of the year. I was drying up, at least everything I wrote seemed to be either the same as 'New Gold Dream' or a parody on it. So we kept touring and touring, and that's why this is the first record this year and why there's been no album, because this mental block came on. Then in September all these manic songs started coming out that could never have been on 'New Gold Dream'. There's one called 'Kick Inside' which could be a Sex Pistols backing track. And I don't know how we went from 'New Gold Dream' to that, but we have, and we're really up with it. We played this unannounced gig in Glasgow at the weekend and it just sounded so rough and raw, but still with an underlying classiness to it...[Steve Lillywhite] was perfect for the time. He brought out all the energy we normally reserve for interviews or playing live. You can actually hear Charlie's guitar on this record and on a few tracks you can hear the words, I don't know whether that's down to me or the mix. He's got a reputation now having done U2 and Big Country, all due respect to them but I don't think we used him because he'd done them. To tell the truth we wanted to use Alex Sadkin. We liked the stuff he'd done with Marley and Grace Jones and you could see his face light up when he heard us play. He agreed to do it but then he went off and did Duran Duran, Classix Nouveaux and the Thompson Twins and we thought what's going on here?. It just fell apart. This is actually the third record we've been in touch with Steve to do, before he'd always been too busy or whatever. The sound he gave us was what we have live. We knew if anybody was able to do that it would be him ... There's always been a rawness we've held back on. In the studio, we've always gone for a much more kind of sophisticated sound. On 'Dream' we achieved a certain kind of 'perfection', and now - whether it's just a reflection of the personalities or not - it's more on the edge. We've all grown a lot; I think you'll see a giant difference in the band since the last tour. There's been a giant improvement - I think we were all a bit larger than life, but now it's just so upfront, pushing and in control."

The working title for the sessions was 'Quiet Night of the White Hot Day'. Using parts of tracks they developed at The Chapel in Lincolnshire and Monnow Valley Studio in Rockfield, near Monmouth in Wales; the band relocated to Townhouse Studios in London with producer Steve Lillywhite. 'Sparkle in the Rain' features Jim Kerr on lead vocals; Charles Burchill on acoustic & electric guitars, Derek Forbes on bass guitar & vocals, Mel Gaynor on drums & vocals, and Michael MacNeil on keyboards. Female vocals on 'Speed Your Love To Me' & 'Street Hassle' were provided by Kirsty MacColl.

Burchill considers: "Whereas the last album was a pleasure to listen to, a sort of coffee table album, this one is a real sweat to listen to, and whereas the last album stimulated certain emotions this one will stimulate different ones. You certainly couldn't go to sleep to it. It's much more Rocky and there's not so much holding back on it. It's not quite screaming solos and big riffs but it's a lot less restrained than 'New Gold Dream'. Playing live all last year really changed our approach. We really were expressing ourselves a lot more."