Simple Minds : I Travel
In September of 1980 the Scottish new wave band Simple Minds released Empires And Dance, an album inspired by the Eurodisco they came across on their European tour. The sound is cool. The synths have come to the forefront. The hair has fallen in front of Jim Kerr's eyes.
The first single, " I Travel", failed to chart but NME's Paul Morley called the opening track one of "the great disco-rock songs" and "the magnificent" "This Fear of Gods" the band's "most impressive work to date".
Morley concluded: "Simple Minds have invented their own ways, melodramatic yet modernist. An authentic new torch music. I'm dancing as fast as I can."
After setting up bandmates with lessons in mime with the legendary Lindsay Kemp, Arista Records allowed Simple Minds 30,000 pounds to record the album but only printed up five thousand copies of Empires And Dance.
"It was ridiculous," Kerr told Smash Hits years later. "We've got a cult following of 30 or 40 thousand that buy all of our records. Anyway, I've got about 8,000 friends!"
The band would move to Virgin in time for New Gold Dream, their American breakthrough.
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