Simple Minds - Street Fighting Years

After hitting the top of the charts with the single Don't You Forget About Me from The Breakfast Club soundtrack and releasing the album Once Upon A Time which contained a couple of hits in Alive And Kicking and Sanctify Yourself believe it or not but Simple Minds were one of the biggest bands in the world. Yes, even bigger than u2 who were only a mid level band at this time in the mid 80's before the Joshua Tree record turned them into a huge band. After the obligatory world conquering tour they released a live album and then two years after that saw the release of Street Fighting Years. A dense politically charged record with state of the art production courtesy of Trevor Horn and Stephen Lipson it contained less immediate songs than its studio predecessor and naturally it didn't sell nearly as much and the band never recovered. At least commercially they didn't.

While not their best record by far, it is an interesting one however, that grows on you after repeated listening. Street Fighting Years is my favorite track, a slow building synthesizer heavy epic written in memory of Chilean folk singer and political activist Victor Jara who was killed after the coup against Salvador Allende in 1973. Yes the U.S. government was involved; just ask Henry Kissinger when you get a chance. Take A Step Back is a mid temp rocker that has no particular deep meaning but I like it anyway. There is an interesting version of Peter Gabriel's Biko covered on here that is not that different of an arrangement from the original version but it does give you an idea of how poltical some of this record is. Which isn't a bad thing in my opinion.

But it here.