Simply Red - A New Flame
As the 80s drifted towards it's post Live Aid conclusion the British music industry was in a state of flux. Stock Aitken and Waterman ruled the charts. Most of the big pre Live Aid acts had either become trans Atlantic megastars like Depeche Mode, Simple Minds, Tears For Fears and George Michael or become parodies of themselves. US stars like Madonna, Prince and Whitney Houston filled radio air play. Starting to bubble under this was the Manchester movement, Happy Mondays and the like or London bands like Soul II Soul. Somewhere in the middle of this maelstrom sat Mick Hucknall and Simply Red. Mick was from Manchester, he had soul there was no doubt about that and he could sing, really, really sing but he didn't really fit into a category. On top of that you either loved him or hated him.
I’ve always been an unashamed lover of Simply Red while acknowledging Mick's occasional misogynistic, knobbish tendencies. There's something about that voice and those songs that I really enjoy. Those first four Simply Red albums were exactly on my wavelength at that time in my life. The deal was sealed when Holding Back The Years was the first song I heard after hearing my Dad had died.
In 1989 after their second album Men and Women and before the monster that was Stars came my favourite and most played Simply Red record. A New Flame. I listened to it again today and it's still magnificent. It opens with It's Only Love. It’s only Mick Hucknall who would attempt and then carry off a cover of a Barry White song with such confidence.
The title track crackles along with the band dancing around Mick's vocal and songs like To Be With You and Turn it Up contain the sort of lines and rhythms only Simply Red can get away with, or not depending on what side of this particular fence you're on. This lyric from To Be With You is sung by Mick with what is I’m sure a wholly intentional leer like Rigsby mooning after Miss Jones in Rising Damp
I wanna be with you (be with you)
I wanna talk with you (talk to you)
Mmm, I wanna sleep with you (sleep with you)
Most of all to make love to you
Come on now, oh-oh
Oh-oh
I get why these songs aren't to everyone’s taste but that’s Mick Hucknall and something about the musicality, that voice and sheer brazenness of it appeals to me. Remember I was listening to Echo and The Bunnymen just 5 years before. It’s a long way from Rescue to songs like You've Got It, More and Love Lays It's Tune which showcase every single drop of why Simply Red were the mega band they became. How many couples got together over one of Mick’s soppy yet beautifully performed love songs in the late 80’s and early 90’s?
She'll Have to Go is a protest song to sit alongside anything by The Blow Monkeys or Style Council in it’s anti-Thatcher jazz punk sentiments. Mick was one angry lounge lizard. Able to keep the funk while spitting that anger at social injustice.
Breaking our backs with slurs
And taking our tax for murdering
The only thing I know
She’ll have to go
If You Don’t Know Me By Now is a cover of the Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes classic. Is probably the sort of song most people remember Simply Red for. There’s no doubt where Ricky Gervais got the inspiration from for this wonderful parody.
After all that. You’ve danced, you’ve cried, you’re angry, you’re horny, you’ve shaken your head in utter disbelief at one man’s ego and absolute shamelessness because he’s Mick Hucknall and he can do whatever the hell he likes. Then he finishes it all off with Enough. Which is just an extraordinary song. Lyrically gut wrenching telling the tale of another failed relationship. It’s jazzy and exotic. Of course the vocal is perfect. There’s a drop in the song which I hesitate to explain as orgasmic but because it’s Mick Hucknall it’s probably right, if a bit yucky. The album version and live versions here are both worth 5 minutes of your time. What a song it is.
Listening to this album again stirs up all kinds of memories from my hedonistic late 80’s past. I thought I knew it all and life would forever be a whirl of bars, clubs, summer holidays and girls. Simply Red were aspirational riding on a wave of optimism of a new decade and the end of Thatcherism. I think their music has stood the test of time incredibly well and I would love to see them reappraised for that rather than judged by Mick’s excesses.
Somehow, I did the Echo & The Bunnymen jump to Simply Red too.
When I started at Warner Belgium, there were a few artists with quite the reputation—Mick Hucknall was definitely high on the list of those best avoided. 😁 But you’re absolutely right—he’s one of the finest singers of his generation and has put out some incredible records. And the emotional connection you have with his song, being the first you heard after your dad passed, is incredibly powerful. That’s the magic of great music. Great read, David!