JC writes……
I know, I know. You wait ages for a post about Simple Minds, and two come along in very quick succession. These things happen…..
I thought I’d try and be smart with this one. Knowing that Jonny the Friendly Lawyer was a huge fan of Derek Forbes, the original bass player with Simple Minds, I thought he’d like to read the band biography, written by Scottish author Graeme Thomson, and so I took a copy over as one of a number of gifts that myself and Rachel wanted to pass onto him and Goldie as our way of saying thanks for inviting us to their home in Santa Monica for an extended stay. I did suggest that, if he wanted, he could submit a review for inclusion as part of this monthly series, and he has very kindly done so.
Here’s Jonny………
“JC asked me to write a review of ‘Themes for Great Cities, A New History of Simple Minds‘ by Graeme Thomson. My one word review is: unreadable. I like Simple Minds okay, or did for the first few albums. I was definitely an admirer of bassist Derek Forbes. But I do NOT recommend this book because of the hopelessly overwrought writing. It contains passages like the following:
Page 1: “I hear the otherworldly pulse of ‘In Trance as Mission’, with its ‘holy backbeat’ and the hopscotch skip of the bassline, like a loved-up heart murmur, or a dog running on three legs, forever slipping off the pavement edge.” (Italics in original.)
Page 120: “In this band, everybody is playing a different part. They’re like a succubus for the music, it is just flowing through them. They are doing what the unit they have formed demands of them. When you’re a band you become some weird symbiotic organism. You recognize body language, you start looking at each other’s books and magazines, you start noticing what part of the papers you all read. You find each other. When a band clicks you just know it, and it’s beautiful.”
Page 193: “Large parts of the two albums are simply beautiful, opening out slowly like long sunsets, dark orange and charcoal.”
Page 256: “The core bass line is, in some respects, the logical destination of Forbes as a bass player – from maximalist ‘X’ and ‘Y’ shapes to one minimalist ‘D’ note repeating ad infinitum. Rhythm pared back to its essence, the eternal cosmic throb.”
Dancing about architecture, to say the least. I don’t know if Thomson is a frustrated poet, or a starstruck fanboy, or is simply given to flights of extravagant, unnecessary prose, or what.
I guess the book includes subjects like how the band got together and recorded and performed, but it’s buried underneath endless steaming piles of superfluous verbiage. Simple Minds are a pretty popular band–there’s got to be a better written biography out there than this one.
Jonny
Oh dear……the song selected doesn’t quite fit.
mp3: Simple Minds – Book of Brilliant Things
From Sparkle In The Rain, released in February 1984, and the last studio album from the early era to which Derek Forbes contributed.
Finally, for today. You’ll recall that I ran a competition for two folk to win a copy of the June Book of the Month, the rather fabulous You’re Doing It All Wrong : My Life As A Failed Rock Star (In The Best Band You’ve Never Heard) by Michael M.
Thanks to everyone who entered. The two names drawn out of the hat were mnfennell and papa stew. My huge thanks to everyone who entered. I’ll likely run another competition of some sorts towards the end of the year.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Ouch! Could one word reviews be a new series?
Flimflamfan
Thanks for the book – I’m sure it won’t be as verbose as Jonny feels the Simple Minds book is! There is a tendency for this to happen – I remember reading biographies of Roxy Music and David Sylvian which suffered the same fate.
Wow, someone who has had to replace his copy of Roget’s Thesaurus countless times due to overuse. Whatever happened to keeping things simple? it seems amateur bloggers like us can write better than the so-called pros sometimes.
Weirdly, just 5 minutes ago, I came across this about, of all bands, The Farm:
“Original DIY success story, indie/dance crossover icons and enduring figures across multiple realms of British popular culture, The Farm return with their first new music of 2025, Moment In Time. Instantly recognisable by sound for their aspirational, observational and near-spiritual upbeat and aspirational electro-inspired indie, and by sight for their mod-ish terrace gang wardrobe, the formerly riotous, now reformed 80s/90s Liverpool five-piece return as wised-up statesmen of pop and look ahead to the release of their long-awaited, fifth album, Let The Music (Take Control).”
That’s just two sentences, the latter of which is more than 50 words long. Whoever wrote this loves their hyphenations, the word “aspirational”, and unnecessary adjectives! Since when were The Farm icons, near-spiritual, or enduring? They made a couple of OK hit singles in the early 90s which dated very quickly, and that’s it. I know it’s clearly written by a publicist or label employee, but it doesn’t make it less awful.
Phew. I can be florid!! But it does seem that Thomson does carry things to the nth degree there! Maybe there’s still a place in the sun for the Simple Minds career overview book I’ve already written the first draft of on PPM! And worse, I’ve got a copy I bought in Wales last year awaiting my eyeballs!
A word or two in defence of Graeme Thomson. I really liked Themes from Great Cities. I thought he found a way to write compellingly about quite complex and intuitive music without resorting to music theory or the “I really love it” school of music discussion familiar from so many podcasts. But then I don’t have a problem with the quotes that Jonny has highlighted here (especially the last one), so what do I know?
I find that the trick is parsing how to translate both the excitement of the music, and the writer’s excitement for the music into prose. Which, in the best of possible worlds, echoes the music itself. There are inspired times when I think I’ve hit the mark. But also the danger of overkill.
Funnily enough, what I’ve heard about the Alfred Bos book, “The Race Is The Prize,” from 1984, suggested that it was some unsurpassable act of deep-end navel-gazing! I never saw a copy though. And the letterforms cited in the Forbes bass discussion were the actual shapes he’d play on the neck as he developed those runs. If you’ve read Forbes book (very down to earth!) you’d be aware of the “X”‘and “Y”’scenarios.
Just to see what would happen I asked ChatGPT to describe Simple Minds’ music in effusive praise using several metaphors. It came up with this, proving that the AI program is, in fact, Graeme Thomson:
“The music of Simple Minds is a cathedral of sound, its vast synth-laden walls echoing with the reverence of existential yearning and euphoric defiance. Their melodies shimmer like sunlight breaking through industrial fog, illuminating the shadows of post-punk disaffection with anthemic grandeur. Listening to them is like standing on a cliff at dawn, the ocean of emotion swelling beneath, each wave a pulse of bass and drum, each gust of wind a wash of guitar reverb or Jim Kerr’s soaring voice—equal parts torch and tempest. They don’t just play songs; they paint sonic murals across the firmament, abstract yet deeply human, fusing the angular introspection of punk with the cosmic architecture of art rock.”
I really enjoyed this book and can take JTFL’s point about the excerpts he’s chosen… but I don’t mind a bit of excitement and trying to write prose that flies a little.
Ah lucky me on the Michael M book! Looking forward to reading that one.
Thanks JC.
ps. hope you got my email through this time?!!
Hi Stewart
Sorry to say…..nothing has come through!
Maybe it’ll work if instead of replying to my email asking for your address, that you send an email to me with the info.
mail to: thevinylvillain@hotmail.co.uk
If that doesn’t work, I’ll come up with a further possible work around!
JIM
Ooft. Confess I enjoyed the book a lot and thought Graeme did a good job of stepping a bit back from the band and the access he was given to give his take on their history. (see also Wilson Neate’s Wore book, Read and Burn).
And coincidentally I was introduced to Graeme on Sunday night at a gig!
My God.
Sounds like someone’s got out the wrong side of the bed.
For anyone reading who is a fan of the early period (up to Sparkle) I can only state my alternative view, this is exactly the Simple Minds book I have waited for my whole life.
Graeme is on Twitter and very friendly and humble.
Dunno, maybe cos it’s cos I’m from Glasgow, possibly that this connects with me so much.
PS back in the day my sister bought me a previous SM biography for Christmas, think it was called The Race is the Prize?
Now that was one giant turd of a book. Called Glasgow the ugliest city in Europe in the first paragraph…
Wore. FFS!