| Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call | ||||
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| Studio album by Simple Minds | ||||
| Released | August 1981/2002/2003 | |||
| Recorded | 1 September 1981 | |||
| Genre | New Wave | |||
| Length | 78:59 (originally 43:50 + 35:09) | |||
| Label | Virgin Records | |||
| Producer | Steve Hillage | |||
| Simple Minds chronology | ||||
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| Alternative cover | ||||
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Sister Feelings Call cover
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Allmusic | [2] |
| The Face | (positive)[3] |
| NME | (unfavourable)[4] |
Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call is the current common title (see the 2002/03 CD re-issue) for what were once two technically separate releases by Simple Minds, both assembled from the same sessions and released at the same time and, in some instances, sold as a double-LP set. Since the current CD version contains all the tracks once split onto two LPs, with their respective track running orders preserved, Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call may be considered a single album with a near 80-minute running length, i.e. the band's fourth studio album.
Viewed as vinyl LPs, Sons and Fascination is the fourth Simple Minds album, released in 1981, with Sister Feelings Call the fifth. The two were released simultaneously, Sons and Fascination being the main feature, and Sister Feelings Call included as a bonus disc with the first 10,000 copies of the original release. The apparent reason for having two single LPs was Virgin Records' reluctance to release all the material as a double LP. As a result, Sons And Fascination came out as the somewhat more coherent album, leaving Sister Feelings Call with tracks that were rejected for the main feature. Despite this policy, Sister Feelings Call may be viewed as a full-fledged album or at least as the second disc in a double set.
Contents |
Upon its first CD release in mid-1980s Sons and Fascination came with tracks from Sister Feelings Call added directly after the main set, so that the CD played as a single long album. Due to technical limitations, the disc's running length having to fit within 74 minutes, two tracks from Sister Feelings Call, "League of Nations" and "Sound in 70 Cities" (an instrumental version of Sons and Fascination's "70 Cities as Love Brings the Fall") were dropped. However they appeared on the CD single of the 12-inch cut of "The American" and would re-appear in album form in 2002 and 2003 when remasters of the double set were issued under the title Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call.
The restructured Canadian version of the Sons And Fascination album (expanded to ten tracks, six of the eight on the UK release and a further four taken from Sister Feelings Call, there shortened to five tracks on the vinyl release and six tracks on cassette) had a significantly different running order, beginning with "Love Song", a Top 20 hit in that country and Australia. It reached #46 on the Canadian RPM National Top 50 Albums Chart on 6 February 1982[5] and remained on the chart for four weeks. The listeners of the influential alternative Toronto-area radio station CFNY-FM voted the album the best of 1981 (in a tie with King Crimson's Discipline); the follow-up New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) would top the following year's list.[6]
These albums were the first recordings the band made for Virgin Records (having ended their contract with Arista) and their first with producer Steve Hillage, who was a guitarist in the hippy progressive rock band Gong. One thing Hillage and Simple Minds had in common was a love of krautrock music.
"Boys from Brazil" is inspired by the novel, as Kerr has said in interviews. The line "babies cannot manage crocodiles" is likely inspired by the Lewis Carroll logic puzzle: "All babies are illogical / Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile / Illogical persons are despised".
This was the last Simple Minds album to have the same line-up as all its predecessors. Drummer Brian McGee left just after recording the set, and was replaced by Kenny Hyslop as part-time member for the upcoming tour. Hyslop also appeared in the "Sweat In Bullet" and "Love Song" videos.
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