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Empires and Dance

Empires and Dance is the third studio album by Scottish new wave band Simple Minds, released on 12 September 1980 by record label Arista.

Background

The album was influenced by the band's experience of travelling in Europe on their previous tour. Prior to the album the band demoed several of their new songs, including "Capital City" and "I Travel" that had appeared on that tour. "Room" was first recorded as a John Peel session in December 1979 together with three songs from Real to Real Cacophony. (These recordings were all later released as part of the 2004 box set Silver Box).

Music and lyrics

Associated with the British postpunk-scene at the time along with bands such as Joy Division and Echo & the Bunnymen, on Empires and Dance Simple Minds also took influence from disco and electronic music by artists such as Donna Summer, Kraftwerk and Grace Jones they heard in German nightclubs. The album includes lengthier, structured songs such as "I Travel", "This Fear of Gods" and "Thirty Frames a Second", as well as a number of more experimental tracks, such as "Contantinople Line", "Twist/Run/Repulsion" and "Kant-Kino". Jim Kerr's lyrics is written from the perspective of a character travelling in central Europe and observing. The lyrics to "This Fear of Gods" was partly inspired by a story by Jorge Luis Borges Kerr recently had read. "Twist/Run/Repulsion" features Chantalle Jeunet reading from a French translation of Nevsky Prospect by Nikolay Gogol.

Recording and release

Empires and Dance was recorded from May to July 1980 in Wales at Rockfield Studios and the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio.

While more successful than its non-charting predecessor (Real to Real Cacophony), Empires and Dance charted relatively poorly, peaking at only number 41 in the UK Albums Chart. According to AllMusic, this was primarily because Arista Records only released a small number of copies at a time before each batch sold out. This had the effect of limited availability for fans.

The opening track "I Travel" was released as a single in 1980, but failed to chart. "Celebrate" was chosen as the second single due to popularity amongst fans. However, it was only released after Simple Minds had left Arista. As a result, the single sold very poorly, and the picture sleeve 7" is amongst the hardest of the band's singles to find.

Following the release of the album, Simple Minds transferred to Virgin Records, where they met with much greater commercial success. Arista tried to capitalise on this success by re-releasing "I Travel" as a single in 1982, along with the compilation Celebration. In 1983, Virgin re-released "I Travel" on 12", to coincide with the acquisition of the band's Arista catalogue. Both times, it still failed to chart.

Critical reception

Empires and Dance received enthusiastic reviews in the British music press by contemporary critics. Ian Cranna in Smash Hits gave the album a 9 out of 10 rating, praising "one of Britain's most gifted and imaginative young bands" for moving into a more dance-orientated synthesizer dominated style "without losing any of their melodic instinct or emotional impact. The result has the dance rhythms of disco, the energy of new wave, haunting melodies with fleeting lyrical glimpses of a troubled modern Europe (but minus the usual "modernist" posing) - and a touch of genius at its very human heart." Writing for NME, Paul Morley called it "a weird, agitating record" . He highlighted "I Travel" as one of "the great disco-rock songs" and "the magnificent" "This Fear of Gods" as the band's "most impressive work to date", and concluded: "Simple Minds have invented their own ways, melodramatic yet modernist. An authentic new torch music. I'm dancing as fast as I can." Simon Ludgate of Record Mirror praised Empires and Dance as "one of the few classic albums of 1980."

Legacy

In a retrospective review, Andy Kellman of AllMusic described Empires and Dance as a "post-punk dance classic". Trouser Press said that despite its inconsistency, Empires and Dance was an "extremely atmospheric and promising" album, "with good dance tunes and a few more quasi-psychedelic ones."

John Foxx has praised the album and Jim Kerr as a "unique" lyricist.

The album cover's faux Cyrillic typeface was emulated for the cover of Manic Street Preachers' third album The Holy Bible, released in 1994. (While the former album reversed all Rs and Ns to resemble Cyrillic letters, the latter album, in contrast, reversed only the Rs.) Twenty years later, Empires and Dance would be cited as a key influence on Futurology, the Manics' twelfth album. It remains one of singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield's favourite records. He said of Empires and Dance in a 1995 Melody Maker article on his favourite albums:

"I've always liked records which are completely misinformed and displaced. They were aware that they were Scottish, and trying to shun it. [...] Anyway, that's why they tried to become really European, this dark, unemotive, industrial band, but in demographic/geographic terms they were really confused, and that can produce brilliant records. I don't think the British look towards Europe in the rose-tinted way Americans do. We see it in Basil Fawlty-ish terms. I remember reading Jim Kerr going on about the Baader-Meinhof gang, and the Red Brigade, and trying to make sense of all these conflicting ideologies. On musical terms it really does make sense. The best bands manifest their lyrics into their music, and it really fucks me off when people don't realise that."

Imagery in Patrik Sampler's novel The Ocean Container was inspired by "Thirty Frames a Second".