1,236 words

Simple Minds
New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
Virgin UK/A&M USA, 1982

New Gold Dream is arguably Simple Minds’ greatest album, the other leading candidate being 1985’s Once Upon a Time. New Gold Dream is also one of the best albums of the Eighties, which was an extraordinarily rich musical decade. Thus it seems appropriate that the title track has the refrain “81, 82, 83, 84.”

I’ve been listening to New Gold Dream for most of my life now, and I’ve never outgrown it. Indeed, it feels like it has grown along with me. It keeps delivering new depths and new pleasures. Culturally, politically, racially—almost everything has gotten worse for the last 40 years. But one dream remains golden.

Simple Minds began as five Scotsmen in Glasgow: Jim Kerr (vocals), Charlie Burchill (guitar), Michael MacNeil (keyboards), Derek Forbes (bass), and Brian McGee (Drums). Kerr and Burchill wrote most of the songs. Brian McGee left the band while New Gold Dream was in development, replaced during the recording sessions by a series of drummers. Finally, producer Peter Walsh hired a black drummer from London, Mel Gaynor, who remained with the band for years.

Simple Minds’ first four albums are, frankly, pretty boring: repetitive, melodically thin, and miserably recorded. But with New Gold Dream, everything came together. The musicians came into their own, with new levels of creativity and harmony, and their new producer, Peter Walsh, gave them their first flattering recording: rich, spacious, shimmering, and immersive.

New Gold Dream has strong melodies, evocative lyrics, and wonderful, collaborative playing. Burchill’s unobtrusive guitar is the height of tasteful restraint, with fluid arpeggios and a clean, chiming, resonant tone. He encases Kerr’s vocals in a golden filigree of sound. MacNeill’s keyboards both carry the melodies and create a great deal of atmosphere. Forbes’ bass isn’t just part of the rhythm section, for it often carries the melodies as well. The percussion is crisp but not obtrusive.

New Gold Dream has a number of hit singles in the UK: “Promised You a Miracle,” “Glittering Prize,” and “Someone Somewhere in Summertime.” The title track also got a lot of radio play.

But for all the hooks, this is a highly unconventional pop album. First of all, of the nine songs, five of then have running times of five to seven minutes, but there’s enough going on musically that they never get boring. Second, some tracks, like “Colours Fly and Catherine Wheel” and “King Is White and in Crowd,” are downright weird, with slow tempos, minimally adorned melodies, and surreal, Hermetic lyrics. There is a slow-tempo instrumental “Someone Up There Likes You.” “Big Sleep” is a slow, surreal lullaby.

The album’s masterpiece is “Hunter and the Hunted.” It is remarkable how such propulsive, atmospheric, and cinematic music is constructed from the simplest elements. There is a superb synthesizer solo by Herbie Hancock. I’d love to know how he ended up at the session.

There are no weak tracks on New Gold Dream, and I always listen to it as a whole. I always listen to it at night. I feel it is music for summer months in Northern climes. There’s nothing spicy, nothing humid about this music.

New Gold Dream also has a striking cover designed by Malcolm Garrett: a magenta cross with a flaming heart in a golden halo, against a lavender and gold parchment, the band’s name and title rendered in purple and gold calligraphy. The feel is baroque and Roman Catholic. At first glance, it is a Christian record, thus it ended up being sold in Christian bookstores and banned behind the Iron Curtain. The same style was maintained on the associated singles. The artwork perfectly fits the music: its veins flow with imperial purple; it is suffused with golden light.

I bought New Gold Dream on vinyl in 1984 along with their follow-up album, Sparkle in the Rain (1983). The vinyl is translucent gold, with purple marbling. It took my breath away when I slid it out of the copper-colored, purple lettered sleeve. Unfortunately, when I dropped the needle, I cringed at the noisy pressing. But the music soon occupied the whole of my attention. When I got my first CD player in 1986, I quickly bought the Virgin import version of the CD, which had an extended version of the title track. I carried it everywhere. It was a 47-minute vacation that could melt the darkest moods.

New Gold Dream was remastered and reissued in 2016 and 2021 in audiophile pressings on both gold and black vinyl. I ended up with a black version. The sound is superb, but there was still an unconscionable amount of surface noise on my favorite track, “Hunter and the Hunted.”

I didn’t get broken up about it, though, because in 2005, Virgin had released the definitive edition of New Gold Dream on DVD audio, with 5.1 and 2.0 remixes by Donald Prent, plus a lost song, “In Every Heaven.” In terms of clarity, warmth, and immersiveness, this edition has never been equaled. You should seek it out.

In 2016, Virgin released a six-disc Super Deluxe version of New Gold Dream: five CDs plus a DVD. Disc one is the original album. Disc two contains extended versions. Disc three contains edits and B-sides. Disc four contains live sessions from the John Peel and David Jensen radio shows. These performances are fascinating, because although the songs are still compelling, they show how much Peter Walsh’s studio production added. Disc five contains alternative mixes, rough recordings, and demos, including a riveting alternative take of “Hunter and the Hunted” and a highly atmospheric early version of “In Every Heaven.” The DVD contains the Prent remixes plus four videos: promo videos of “Promised You a Miracle and “Glittering Prize” plus the same songs performed on Top of the Pops. The box also contains two booklets with photos and articles. The packaging designed by Malcolm Garrett is superb.

Over the years, Simple Minds has released a dozen live albums (some of them only available to limited audiences). All the ones I have heard feature songs from New Gold Dream. Of course they do. But in October of 2023, Simple Minds did something unprecedented. They released New Gold Dream—Live from Paisley Abbey: a live recording, without an audience, of the entire album in Scotland’s twelfth-century Paisley Abbey. Fans were ecstatic.

How does it rate? It can never be the same, but in some ways, it is better. This recording highlights Charlie Burchell’s guitar like never before. The wonderfully resonant acoustic of Paisley Abbey is perfect for this music and is really only equaled by the Prent remix. “Big Sleep,” “Someone Up There Likes You,” and “King Is White and in the Crowd” are more atmospheric than the originals. Unfortunately, Jim Kerr’s voice has aged and sounds somewhat thin and strained in places. Also, Derek Forbes’ melodic bass lines are more muted in the hands of Ged Grimes.

The packaging of Live from Paisley Abbey is also a worthy homage to the original, as was the release on translucent, red marbled vinyl. I had to have it, but when I put it on the turntable, it was unplayable: the hole was slightly off-center. I felt like Charlie Brown. I got a refund and bought the CD instead.

Live from Paisley Abbey isn’t a repetition of New Gold Dream or a replacement for it. It is more of a reincarnation: one of the great albums of the Eighties alive again. My simple mind couldn’t be happier.