Sparkle in the Rain is the sixth studio album by Scottish rock band Simple Minds, released on 6 February 1984 by record label Virgin in the UK and A&M in the US. The album continued the commercial success the band experienced with their previous studio album, peaking at number 1 in the UK Albums Chart on 18 February 1984, and reached the top 20 in countries including New Zealand, Netherlands, Sweden, and Canada. Receiving mostly positive reviews in the United Kingdom and the United States, Sparkle in the Rain was ultimately certified platinum in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry, and significantly increased media interest in the band.Sweeting (1988), p. 146
The lead single from the album, "Waterfront", was released in November 1983 to commercial success, followed by "Speed Your Love to Me" which was released in January 1984 ahead of the albums release. A third and final single, "Up on the Catwalk", was released in March 1984 and continued the commercial success for the band, with all three singles from the album reaching the top thirty in the United Kingdom.
Background Signs of a possible change in musical direction into a more stadium-oriented sound first became apparent during a series of live performances in the summer months of 1983 by Simple Minds to large European crowds.Sweeting (1988), p. 132 Lead singer Jim Kerr returned to a natural, unadorned facial and hair style, as "whatever they would have to say would be in the music." "Those gigs brought us back to the rawest kind of state, I think," Kerr said. "In places like that, 50,000 people, there's just no room for subtlety, and there's no need for it, there's no want for it."Sweeting (1988), p. 133 This foresaw the band coming into direct contact with U2 for the first time at the Belgian rock festival Torhout-Werchter; upon meeting the two bands immediately developed a strong liking for each other. Kerr remarked, "we saw a lot of ourselves in them and vice versa," and refuted the accusation that Simple Minds were merely joining the "new rock" led by U2.Sweeting (1988), p. 134 "We get this thing levelled at us of being influenced by them, but they're equally influenced by us. It might be in a much subtler sense, in dynamics or some of the sounds."
A new song, "Waterfront", was performed by the band when selected as "special guests" of headline acts U2 at Dublin's Phoenix Park in August 1983. "The song's throbbing pulse and enormous sense of space suggested the way the band were thinking," Adam Sweeting commented, "the elaborate, almost ornate arrangements of New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84) were receding into the distance. Simple Minds were making bigger music for bigger occasions." Shortly afterwards, the band were looking for a producer for their forthcoming sixth album; initially Alex Sadkin, of the Compass Point All Stars, was sought after due to his work with Grace Jones, but his schedule was incompatible with that of Simple Minds.Sweeting (1988), p. 135 Steve Lillywhite however, had wanted to produce for the band for a long time, and ultimately Simple Minds completed a three-way Celtic grouping along with U2's War and Big Country's The Crossing under Lillywhite.
Recording In September 1983, Simple Minds travelled to Monnow Valley Studio in Rockfield, near Monmouth in Wales, for three weeks to work on some new material; Lillywhite accompanied them for the last two weeks to meet the musicians and suggest some modifications to their music. This material consisted of around six tracks developed during a session the band had spent at a recording studio called The Chapel in Lincolnshire in January, and other initial samples recorded in London's Nomis Studios before their performance at Phoenix Park. At Rockfield, most of the tracks were dramatically changed, as they had begun as demos consisting only of work by Mick MacNeil and Charlie Burchill, with some drum and bass machine sounds overlapping. With drummer Mel Gaynor now having fully integrated himself into the band, the songwriting was beginning to be influenced consistently from all group members.
The group relocated to Townhouse Studios in London by October, by which time their updated material retained "only a bassline or keyboard melody from the original four-track demo". As a producer, Lillywhite differed from Peter Walsh on the previous album by going with "the feel of the moment" rather than following "any preconceptions about how he wanted the album to turn out".Sweeting (1988), p. 137 He tried to emphasize musical unity between the band members; for instance, he pressed Jim Kerr to write lyrics for songs as soon as he could, such that his vocal melodies were influenced by the instrumentation. "On their earlier records, everyone's parts didn't really bear much resemblance to everyone else's," said Lillywhite. "Mick would be fiddling away like this, Charlie would be going like this, then Jim would come in and sing something completely different to what the other two were doing. Whereas I now think Jim is taking some of the melodies from the guitar and the keyboards, which he didn't use to, which makes it more like a song."
Burchill likened Lillywhite's producing style and manner to that of the film director Werner Herzog.Sweeting (1988), p. 138 Generally starting studio work at 11am, the band found the recording process repetitive, as each track was meticulously refined and sharpened through multiple iterations.Sweeting (1988), p. 139 With this leading to the group becoming tense and distracted, Lillywhite occasionally asked the band members to vacate the studio while he worked on mixing. The album's working title was Quiet Night of the White Hot Day, which eventually survived as a lyric in the complete album's seventh track "White Hot Day". The recording process drew to a completion with Lillywhite and the band adding some finishing touches to "Up on the Catwalk"; Jim Kerr sang some additional lines that had been stored in his notebook instead of name-dropping some extra famous people towards the song's end.Sweeting (1988), p. 141 Minor imperfections in phasing and pitch were then corrected to complete the album.
Composition and lyrics Kerr, before its release, described the forthcoming Sparkle in the Rain as an "art record—art without tears with masses of muscle".Sweeting (1988), p. 143 The band's new drummer Mel Gaynor, who had contributed for some tracks on the previous record, agreed on the album's aggressiveness: "On this album I'm getting a few of my ideas across, not only in the drumming field but in other fields as well. It's a lot different from New Gold Dream, both sound-wise and material-wise. The last one was very smooth, very polished. This album's got a bit more dirt in it."Sweeting (1988), p. 136 Regarding the role of producer Steve Lillywhite, Brian Hogg wrote that Sparkle in the Rain "captured the bravura of their in-concert sound" and Lillywhite "introduced a dynamic, often contrasting, perspective quite unlike the panoramic standpoint of its predecessor, but there was no denying the resultant brash excitement."Hogg (1992) Adam Sweeting described how, during the recording process of "Up on the Catwalk", "Forbes and Gaynor had combined to create a steamrolling rhythm track which came hammering out of the opening chorus like a runaway train."Sweeting (1988), p. 140
Sparkle in the Rain has been described as a new wave, arena rock, pop rock and art pop album, featuring a more rock-oriented sound than its predesccors. MacKenzie Wilson of AllMusic retrospectively described the album's musical style thus: "Synth-beats throb over Charlie Burchill's new wave third-chord guitars and swooning basslines...Piano vibes are pinch-hitting and Kerr's songwriting thrives on celebrity and the falling grace that coincides that." The overall effect of the instrumentation is a "densely packed juggernaut of an LP", with Adam Sweeting describing the "big, spacey feel" of "Waterfront" as atypical. Other slower tracks include the instrumental "Shake Off the Ghosts" and the "pensive" "'C' Moon Cry Like a Baby", while the punk-revivalist "The Kick Inside of Me", "straining vocal and stinging guitar" of "Speed Your Love to Me", and "pounding percussion and keyboards" of "Up on the Catwalk" and "Book of Brilliant Things" emphasize the album's more intense sound. Matt White of PopMatters described the band's transformation into "soaring, grandiose rock": "The electronic elements are pared down in favor of more standard piano flourishes, the guitar now having won the battle of dominant instrument."
A review of the album for Rolling Stone discussed how many of Jim Kerr's lyrics can be interpreted as religious references, such as The Bible in "Book of Brilliant Things", or redemption at the Christian cross in "East at Easter". "Simple Minds find religious illumination in the vertigo of their fertile imaginations," wrote Parke Puterbaugh, "and it comes out as psychedelic testifying – all fast movement and kaleidoscopic repetition – that builds to a crescendo of ecstasy and release." Hence, the subject matter on Sparkle in the Rain can be seen as more outward-looking and aspirational than on more introspective tracks such as "Someone Somewhere in Summertime" on the preceding album. For example, "Waterfront" was written as both a eulogy to their place of origin Glasgow and as a celebration of much wider aspirations to recover its once-thriving industry. Jim Kerr, stating that the song's lyrics were inspired by the ruined shipbuilding sector on the River Clyde, said "you always see your home town differently when you come back...I became aware of a grander scheme of things," although Puterbaugh speculated that lyrics such as "Get in, get out of the rain" and "...move on up to the waterfront" may relate to "baptismal immersion or death".
Jim Kerr's vocal performance on "The Kick Inside of Me" was described by Dave Thompson of AllMusic as "a Saint Vitus frenzy", where he "attempts to shake the ghosts right out of his body. Are they the specters of punk's past, the spirits of inspiration now gone? Or the shades that dwell in our deepest recesses, set free by the power of music?" "Speed Your Love to Me", meanwhile, concerns "people running to meet each other, unable to focus on anything other than a reunion that keeps receding." Noel Murray, writing for The A.V. Club, speculated, "While the guitars twinkle and Kerr yells, "You go to my head," it's hard to know whether the moment is ecstatic or desperately manic." PopMatters' Matt White described the song's lyrics as managing "to make a line like 'She would like to make a wish / Twenty-four cannot be this' sound both sad and triumphant." The album also contains an abbreviated cover version of Lou Reed's song "Street Hassle", a song the band had previously played live a number of times during the 1982–1983 New Gold Tour.
Release