I’ve decided to make this entire
blog entry red for a reason.
No, the reason is not because red is
my favourite colour (though I do admit that I like it), and no, it’s not
because I wish that it was Christmas all over again because let’s face
it...some of us are thrilled that it only comes around once a year.
It’s because the group that I am
featuring in today’s topic is...well...Simply Red!
And for today’s blog entry, I’m
doing another one of my album spotlights!
Sometimes the songs on a particular album are so good that I can’t help
but spotlight the whole album. And, in
the case of Simply Red, I came to this decision after getting one of their
songs stuck inside my head about a month ago.
I was watching television on a Sunday afternoon, and the song was
playing in the background of a scene.
And, the song was stuck in my head about a week after I heard it.
I had actually thought about doing
the spotlight on the song the following Sunday...but it was right around the
time that I was doing the “Pop Culture Addict’s Advent Calendar” posts, so I
knew that I would have to wait until after the holidays were over before I
could feature it.
But then I got to listening to the
whole album that the song was featured on, and I thought that the songs were
all really fantastic. So, why not
feature all of them?
Here’s the album cover for today’s
featured album spotlight.
The album is called “Stars”, and it
was released on September 30, 1991. It
was Simply Red’s fourth studio album, and ultimately, it was one of their most
successful albums.
But before we talk about the album “Stars”,
why don’t we talk a little bit about Simply Red, and their musical journey up
to and including the recording and release of “Stars”.
It all began in 1976 in,
of all places, a Sex Pistols concert in Manchester, England. Mick Hucknall, then a sixteen-year-old art
student, was at the concert along with several other musicians, and after the
concert, Hucknall formed a band named “The Frantic Elevators”. The band stayed together for nearly eight
years before disbanding in 1984, just after they released a single together
that despite its critical acclaim didn’t garner much attention.
That would soon change with Hucknall’s
next project.
In 1985, Hucknall met his new
manager, Elliot Rashman, and together they spent the first part of 1985
assembling local musicians to form a new band, and Rashman shopped the new band
around record companies, hoping that one would sign them.
Here’s some interesting trivia for
you. Initially when the band was
forming, it was Hucknall’s idea to just call the band, “Red”. The name stemmed from a childhood nickname
that Hucknall had as a result of him having bright red hair. The manager of a local club that had booked
the band was a bit confused about the name, and didn’t believe that a band
would name themselves after a colour.
But at Mick’s insistence, he told the manager that the band’s name was “Red,
simply red”. Somehow, when the manager
was printing posters for the upcoming venue, he misunderstood Mick, and instead
of just “Red”, the band name became “Simply Red”. Luckily, Hucknall and the rest of the band
liked it, and the name stuck!
The band’s original line-up in 1985,
by the way, was as follows...
MICK HUCKNALL – Vocals
TONY BOWERS – Bass
DAVID FRYMAN – Guitar
CHRIS JOYCE – Percussion
TIM KELLETT – Brass/Background Vocals
FRITZ MCINTYRE – Keyboard/Vocals
TONY BOWERS – Bass
DAVID FRYMAN – Guitar
CHRIS JOYCE – Percussion
TIM KELLETT – Brass/Background Vocals
FRITZ MCINTYRE – Keyboard/Vocals
It did take a few months for Simply
Red to catch on. The band’s first two
singles didn’t exactly chart very well in the United Kingdom, and were
virtually ignored in North America. But
then came the spring of 1986, which was the year that the band released their
third single...which also happened to be the last single that Hucknall had
released with his previous band two years earlier.
The song was “Holding Back The Years”,
and it proved to be a huge hit on the charts.
The song peaked at #3 in the Netherlands, #2 in the United Kingdom, and
peaked at #1 in the United States the week of July 12, 1986! It was also the song that helped cement
Simply Red’s status on the charts.
Two more albums soon followed, and
by 1991, Simply Red was easily considered one of Britain’s best bands. But, here’s something incredibly
shocking. When Simply Red first started
out, their early singles seemed to do better overseas than they had been doing
in their native country. “Holding Back
The Years” was the first of two #1 hits for Simply Red in the United States
(the other one was a cover version of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes single
“If You Don’t Know Me By Now” in 1989), but in the United Kingdom, the band
couldn’t get a number one single no matter how hard they tried.
There was also a bit of controversy
surrounding the strength of the band, as many people believed (including Mick
Hucknall himself) that the band was more or less a solo effort by Hucknall,
rather than as a group effort. And, by
1991, Simply Red had gone through two guitarists, and lost Joyce and Bowers
(who were replaced by Hector Pereira, Shaun Ward, and Gota Yashiki.
But if there was some controversy
over how well the band worked together, you never would have known it when the
band released their fourth album, “Stars”.
(Well, okay, almost all the
promotional music videos made for the album solely focus on Hucknall...but
despite that, you never would have known it!)
Sadly, the curse of not having a
number one hit in their own country continued to plague the band with this
album...their highest ranking single failed make it past the #8 position on the
charts. But the album’s success in sales
more than made up for it. Did you know
that the “Stars” album was the best-selling album in the United Kingdom for
both 1991 AND 1992? And, did you know
that the album went twelve times platinum, tying for sixth place on the list of
the top-selling albums of all-time in the United Kingdom? That is such an amazing feat!
And, part of that success came from
the beautiful, passionate songs that were released from “Stars”. So, let’s have a listen, beginning with the
album’s first single release.
SOMETHING GOT ME STARTED –
September 21, 1991
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD
CHARTS: #23
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD A/C
CHARTS: #21
PEAK POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS: #11
Okay, so this first single release
was a bit of a departure for the band.
You know how the band had #1 singles in the USA? Well, both of those songs were soulful
ballads. This one sounded more like a
club hit that you’d groove to on a dance floor with flashing lights and disco
balls. Yet, this arrangement seemed to
work very well with the band’s new direction and sound. There were also several versions released of
this single...a 7-inch, a 12-inch, and a CD version! While the song wasn’t quite as successful in
the mainstream charts as other Simply Red releases, it was a massive hit in the
club scene in late 1991. It just went to
show that sometimes a band may be associated with one style of music, but that
didn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t capable of doing other styles. In this case, dance music seemed to work very
well for the band. And, who knew Mick
Hucknall had some swagger like Mick Jagger?
(Okay, I just made up that corny
last bit...I apologize. J
)
“Something Got Me Started” also has
a rather unique claim to fame, as it is the only single by Simply Red to be
released twice. In January 2006, an
acoustic version was released as part of the band’s album “Simplified”. Though it didn’t chart as high as the
original version, it’s still a neat fact to share.
STARS – November 30, 1991
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD
CHARTS: #44
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD A/C
CHARTS: #8
PEAK POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS: #8
This song is probably the most successful
of the songs from “Stars”. The title
track peaked at #8 on both the UK charts as well as the American Adult
Contemporary charts.
(It’s also the song that I ended up
getting stuck in my head a month ago, and it is the song that prompted me to do
a blog entry on Simply Red in the first place.)
But, what a song it was! I had forgotten how good it was. In fact, I think “Stars” may very well be my
favourite Simply Red song (though “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” comes very
close too). The music video is very
simplistic, yet ethereal, as we see Mick walking through a desert littered with
fallen stars as he thinks about the love he lost. And, that’s basically the concept behind “Stars”...it’s
a song about still having unresolved feelings for someone in a relationship
that ended with a broken heart. Who can’t
identify with that scenario? I
particularly love the wonderful lyrics that were written for the single. “Too many hearts are broken/A lover’s promise
never came with a maybe/So many words are left unspoken/The silent voices are
driving me crazy.”
Now that’s profound. Then again, I always did have a love for
clever, thought-provoking lyrics. And
with Hucknall writing this, and the other songs on the album, there are plenty
of these deep thoughts and feelings to experience. In fact, the next single takes us into a
little into Hucknall’s own personal life at the time.
(Oh, yeah...that red spot on his
tooth? That’s actually a ruby that
Hucknall had permanently placed into his tooth right around the time Simply Red
made it big. He has since changed it
into a diamond.)
FOR YOUR BABIES –
January 25, 1992
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD A/C
CHARTS: #24
PEAK POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS: #9
Okay, okay...I know what you’re
thinking...this video is a couple of Halloween costumes away from being a
promotional video for Anne Geddes. It
was also the original concept for Amy Grant’s video for “Baby Baby”, which if
Amy had gotten her way would have included a bunch of kids crawling over top of
Amy wearing a mermaid costume!
Okay, that’s a scary image. Let’s move on, shall we?
The thing is...this video
works. After all, when you have a single
entitled “For Your Babies”, you kind of have to include some children,
right? Scary thing is, all these kids
are likely in their mid-to-late 20’s right now!
Yikes!
Anyway, the song’s all about how
life changes once you become a parent.
Any of my friends who have children will likely listen to these lyrics,
and instantly go “awwwwwww”. But there’s
also a hidden truth behind this song. It
was written by Hucknall at a time in which all of his friends were settling
down and having children of their own, and it seemed to him like he was the
only one of his peers who didn’t have that.
Here’s an interesting comparison
here. At the time this video was released,
Hucknall was thirty-one and yet to have a child. And, this blogger also happens to be
thirty-one and childless. So, yes...I
can most definitely relate to how Hucknall was feeling because I’m currently living
it!
But, in Hucknall’s case, patience was worth the wait. After a period of self-admitted failure to commit (you might want to read all about all the partners he had during the early days of Simply Red...it may just shock you), Hucknall finally settled down and became the father of a little girl named Romy True in June 2007, when he was 47 years of age.
THRILL ME – May 2, 1992
PEAK POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS: #33
I unfortunately don’t have a whole
lot to say about this particular single other than the fact that it was the
lowest charting single of the album, and that this was the only song that
Hucknall did not write solely by himself (he collaborated with Fritz
McIntyre). But, that’s fine. Sometimes you don’t need to say a lot about a
song. Just listen to it instead. It’s quite good, despite the low chart
position.
YOUR MIRROR – July 25, 1992
PEAK POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS: #17
The final track of “Stars” to chart,
this song is probably part social commentary, part self-esteem
building...depending on how you want to look at it. On one hand, the song talks about standing up
for oneself against as society that seems incredibly corrupt and screwed up due
to the leadership of a cold figure (keep in mind that this song was written
around the time that Margaret Thatcher - who some British people may call a
polarizing figure - was leaving office).
But if one were to look at the song through the perspective of
rose-coloured goggles sprinkled with Valentine’s Day dust, you could also
stretch the claim that the song could talk about standing up for yourself after
leaving a terrible relationship and staring in the mirror, realizing that life
does go on, the birds do continue singing their songs, and that you are
beautiful.
Okay, I may be stretching with that
last one, but I’m a bit young to remember Thatcherism, so I came up with an
alternate theory.
So, that’s our look back on “Stars”,
widely considered to be Simply Red’s greatest success story. In the years that followed, Simply Red ended
up scoring at least one #1 song in Britain (with 1995’s “Fairground”), and the
band remained together until their breakup in 2010. As of 2012, Mick Hucknall continues to record
music, and his latest album “American Soul” was just released two months ago
and is available to purchase on iTunes, and record stores.
But, I don’t think Mick Hucknall can
ever truly break away from the Simply Red label...not that he minds in the
slightest, of course.
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