Loves it. I've loved Simple Minds since a wee lad, and used to drive to distant towns to get imports. Imagine how different life was in the 1980s. Just unfathomable to think now. No ABE.com to find that rara avis book in fifteen minutes; we would have had to roam to the ends of the earth to find it, and poked our head in every tiny bookshop (and good look with the hours!) No illegal downloads of every song ever recorded. Go find a record ship that stocks imports or can order it for you. Wait a few weeks then drive a hundred miles. I think I can now officially be Grumpy Old Man who (Dana Carvey's character) talking about walking miles through the snow to get to school and having to eat my own arm to sustain myself on the journey.

Sparkle in the Rain was my favorite. Just gorgeous mastering, that record. But I love the earlier, avanty stuff too. Empires and Dance is an awesome album. Singles like "Changeling" have incredible quantum shifts in them!

I think they gave more than the name to my favorite band of all time, the Cocteau Twins. How can Robin Guthrie's shimmering and chiming guitar not be somewhat influenced by how Simple Minds turned the guitar into a decadent instrument.

They achieved such a "large" sound on Sparkle in the Rain, grand without slipping into the grandiose ever.

There, I've "blown your comment box all up" as the kiddies say.

Comments are supposed to be one or two sentences.

The decaying corpse of Miss Manners will surely be after me tonight like a bad Raimi flick.