What Is 'Big Music'?

U2

Simple Minds

The Alarm

There is a Waterboys song called 'I Have Heard the Big Music' or something. I don't know whether they coined it though. I suppose 'Big Bands' had already been used.

"Big Music" certainly seems to have Celtic implications.

Oh man, digging deep.

AN EMOTIONAL FISH WHERE ARE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU?

Doves always strike me as this sort of band, that guy sounds like Stuart Adamson too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdAOF_tg9os

the official video with the band performing on a beach is also on youtube but this version is more poignant, I think

The Cult might not uniformly qualify as "Big Music," but "She Sells Sanctuary" certainly does.

the Liverpool division of this movement tended to be less bombastic than the Irish/Scottish stuff and more wispy and almost effete, is that a fair comment? Thinking of The Icicle Works, Wild Swans, Lotus Eaters etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1RyvR210m0

does this qualify? it has earnest young men emoting on the side of a mountain and that wide-eyed questing, heroic vibe. Young Ian McNabb was so pretty!

oh lordy, it's zerra one

this revive was inspired by NickB's post about Big Country and U2 on that other thread, obviously

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI-41V7SgEA

I sort of wonder if this is what Big Country sounded like in Stuart Adamson's head

Icicle Works is one of those bands I've known about since the 80s but have never consciously listened to (besides the obvious "Whisper to a Scream"). Doing so now. Nice guitaristy.

that liverpool stuff was more rooted in psychedelia and drugs, rather than that quasi-religious yearning for some sort of hugeness that a lot of these bands represent for me. which is why the bunnymen don't quite fit in i think? although they kind of do

first icicle works is a great record, next couple have some killer songs too

Does Easterhouse fit in here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4afrPGym8q8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF2aIP7r2QQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw4kPe1UOp0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmwMhjbThKg

another Liverpool thing that kind of fits (well, the Wirral but near enough)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xb9tUl-wDk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdI_F9Dj6Xs

^ this is actually an awesome song unlike the rest of the guff i just posted

the europeans : acid rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv0GBlTOKxQ

back when free music was a rare thing, i somehow ended up with a free 7" of this.
when i saw the thread revival, this is the first thing that i thought of.
big widescreen 80s pop.
did the band ever do anything else ?

thinking about what NickB said in his aforementioned post about being the right age for this stuff when it was current- it does seem to be very much a young man's game? it has this kind of 'boys becoming men' thing to it? Jackie Leven was already in his 30s in that Doll by Doll clip which is maybe why it seems so different

this seems like a great c90 in the making

i had a europeans album at one stage. they kind of fit i suppose, though they were more of a synthy thing. don't remember much about it other than kiki dee was a guest on it and i didn't like it much (not enough guitar probably). hadn't heard that song before, sounds quite peter gabrielish. their 'hit' i think was 'premonition', will dig it up in a sec

oh wait, just remembered their singer was steve hogarth who obviously went on to replace fish in marillion

oh it was 'recognition' not 'premonition'...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJpvW07CgO0

no !
had no idea re the marillion connection ...
blimey.
ilm delivers once again.
ok back to the thread ..
so, the euros were too synth based, how about this classic big guitar tune :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH69uYYXLlA

hurrah! : sweet sanity

ok, the youtube sounds shyte, but trust me, this on a proper set sounds truly massive ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKK64LH9DrE

thinking about what NickB said in his aforementioned post about being the right age for this stuff when it was current- it does seem to be very much a young man's game? it has this kind of 'boys becoming men' thing to it?

ha i was really into this stuff when i was going through puberty, a lot of this mystical aching for the vastness of whatever the fuck they're on about does have something of the sublimated wet dream about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqptTxlRQBg

'Up Here In The North Of England' is disillusioned and angry rather than wide-eyed, but still has that awestruck quality, I think? but horrified, terrible-awe sublime style. I think it's my favourite song about Liverpool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-br_mXAB_XU

^ this zerra one song really is an exemplary piece of big music nonsense, you should hear it

http://www.cineoutsider.com/reviews/pix/a/ab/absoltly4.jpg

Absolutely's parody of Simple Minds does not seem to be on youtube anymore, sadly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlbfIi_hv0s

i should say that when i was kid i would spend hours rooting through the bargain bins for records by the all of the rubbish bands i posted above merely cos they had been likened to u2 in the nme live reviews (and strangely they would always be there somewhere, how weird is that?). and 80% of the time they would turn out to be terrible terrible records, but i had to make myself enjoy them cos i'd blown all my pocket money on them, mostly horrible stuff barring a few good tracks by cactus world news...

i go through a box for work and find, like, three copies of the single and three copies of the album. it used to be everywhere. so many copies and i have no idea who bought them on the east coast. i kinda liked it after seeing the video on mtv at the time but mostly i look at the cover now and think...this friggin' guy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_JofCQmfIQ

and yeah i know he was in that post-punk group but nobody wants them now either. they are negative one dollar.

does 80s Icehouse have anything to do with this? (Australia, I know)

i don't remember icehouse getting that windswept but maybe. thought of them as just slick new wave/aor.

i listened to the first Easterhouse album last week. i still love it. i can't help it. echo-laden communists who were a mix of U2 and Chameleons. never had the guts to listen to anything later though. even with hunters & collectors i go as far as human frailty. maybe the album fate? maybe not. they got pretty operatic a la the alarm later on. human frailty had some cool moments though.

my fave H&C is the s/t with the vampire teeth on the cover and its not even an album. just a mix of singles and album tracks. i love it to death. definitely some big music moments on there but still a little too weird and post-punk to fit the definition.

someone brought me in a clean copy of fisherman's blue on vinyl. sweet! in honor of this thread i'm actually going to listen to both sides instead of just the perfect and beloved first side. kinda like Making Movies for me. i only play the perfect first side.

H&C were pretty fuckin solid for several years there. "Carry Me," "Back of the Breadline," good shit

okay i admit i turned off the 2nd side of fisherman's blues because i really wanted to hear the 12-inch of "rainy season" by howard devoto. a teen fave of mine. and also one of my fave lyrics of all time: "i am on fire and its the rainy season/in this desert you made me create/i am on fire and its the rainy season/and you're like a mirage i could learn to hate."

its a pretty big song!

Soda Stereo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_FkEw27XJ0

thank you for making me check re devoto.
turns out the cd reissue of 'jerky versions .. ' from a few years back has the 12" version on it,
along with the b-side, and even the 7" edit.
and yeah, this fits with what i regard as a 'big song'.

other possible additions to the thread :

- icicle works
- hurrah! (especially 'sweet sanity'/'how many rivers')

I thought H&C meant Hue & Cry there for a second, was wondering if I'd missed something! They were Scottish I suppose.

Anyway the definition of The Big Music is "is it windswept enough for a live audience to plausibly wave a flag to it?"

and yeah, the video for 'sweet sanity' was pure earnest 80s overload

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2GZvDPMVlQ

never really clicked with any non-magazine devoto apart from the first luxuria single, maybe it's time to try again

Anyway the definition of The Big Music is "is it windswept enough for a live audience to plausibly wave a flag to it?"

otm!

Weird tangent, but I started listening to Sparkle in the Rain for the first time in years due to this thread (still massive + empty + great in equal measure) and this prompted me to look up what ver Minds play live these days. Nothing too surprising, but curious to see they sometimes start their sets with a recording of "So May We Start" by Sparks (which Sparks also use to start their sets)

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/simple-minds/2024/sandstone-point-hotel-moreton-bay-australia-43ad8b3f.html
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/simple-minds/2024/kings-park-and-botanic-garden-perth-australia-6badde5a.html

xpost That describes Oasis too

Manc Irish.

Scott will be glad to know that Spear of Destiny are a bargain bin staple here too

haha. i believe it. honestly, if anyone here hasn't heard that song you should really click on that link above. you probably won't thank me for it! i forgot about the over the top trevor horn synth sounds at the end.

this probably doesn't really count but i always loved this effort - windswept goths with the yorkshire the edge on guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyl55ftvWyg

YOU'RE WELCOME EVERYONE! ENJOY THE FIRE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jddg2PcVxb4

those guys were actually a long-running rockabilly revival band called the blue cats and they did that one weird celtic thing and i like you can still hear the gene pitney influence in that guys voice

- icicle works

I may have confused Icehouse with this band

iva davies did have a fearsome mullet at one stage tbf. but they were more of david bowie-ish thing, like an arena rock version of japan

was it a screw-down hairdo?

yep like david, the cat from japan

occurs to me that maybe the culmination of 'big music' was the Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored: the epic scale, the wide-eyed quasi-mystical wonder, booming drums, effects-soaked guitar, an anthem to some sort of transcencent moment?

- icicle works

I may have confused Icehouse with this band

― brimstead

your mention of icehouse reminded me of icicle works.
not heard them in years,
but seem to recall that IW were a very intense band in the same world as Wah!.

Did James not get a big 'Big Music' circa Seven? Born Of Frustration even sort of ripped off 'Don't You Forget About Me'. Wonder if there's also a case for Never Loved Elvis era Wonder Stuff

james is a good shout

would say they and Fontana-era House Of Love were attempting the early 90s version of it

i think people here are still fond of icicle works just for that one damn song. it had legs. it was in movies and stuff. also its just good and very catchy. not exactly a huge hit but beloved all the same. and that was all anyone really knew. kinda like dream academy. you can still hear their big one in CVS on the regular. that was a BIG song. you know?

weirdly their big song in the US was different their big song in the UK (Love Is A Wonderful Colour). they did have some decent singles after those too but nothing that got near the charts anywhere. used to like them in my teens, they're really part of the new psychedelia that other liverpool bands like the Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes were doing (Eric's & the Probe record shop scene was a big part of this). they did cover versions of Buffalo Springfield, Spirit and the Byrds and toured with the Rain Parade, they were more like the UK wing of the Paisley Underground? so i don't really think about them in the same bracket as U2, but they did play here a couple of weeks back supporting Big Country so what do i know?

And I'll never be the same
(You'll never get there, never get there, never get there)

Something so pure has called my name
(for one more album until I rediscover Celtic folk)

Crescendo core like u2, swans, explosion in the sky, bcnr

I’m interested LUS, do you just answer the thread title questions without reading any of the threads?

It's mad that someone wrote something in 1984 which, to me, describes so perfectly the feeling of taking ecstasy for the first time

Plopped on Waterboy's Pagan Place for the first time in decades. Sounding big in a kinda Springsteen way more than a U2 way.

Both, IDH

"A Church Not Made With Hands" is so fucking great man. I don't think the rest of APP lives up to it really

Plopped on Waterboy's Pagan Place for the first time in decades. Sounding big in a kinda Springsteen way more than a U2 way.

yes and no. maybe the basic sound but there an obvious religious or spiritual bigness to it that doesn't seem very springsteen at all, and i do think that's a key element to this whole thing. the waterboys had that, the alarm had that, simple minds had that, u2 had that. big country not so much though, and indeed their lyrical concerns were definitely much more to do with the struggles of working people

I listened to my first 90s Rush album yesterday, Roll the Bones, and weirdly it reminded me at times of the Waterboys! (And also a bit of - I can't place it. early 90s James? hoover the AOR touchstones away and there's definitely something college rocky there)

roll the bones RULES

Waterboys had a big Dylan/Van Morrison influence which maybe the likes of The Alarm didn't. Although the Hothouse Flowers did! No-one talks about them any more.

The Alarm were definitely very much into Dylan, see (or rather don't) their cover of Knockin' On Heavens Door

I loved that first Alarm album so much when I was 14. Its corniness overwhelms its charms for me now, but 68 Guns will always have a place in my heart.

I do still love the Waterboys.

listened to 'a pagan place' and 'roll the bones' back-to-back tonight and never have i less understood a comparison, let alone as Big Music