Simple Minds is a Scottish pop and rock band that achieved its greatest worldwide popularity from the mid-80s to the early 90s, still playing to a massive fan-following today. The group, from the South Side of Glasgow, has produced a set of critically acclaimed albums in the early 80s. It also has secured a string of successful hit singles, the best known being their #1 worldwide hit single "Don't You (Forget About Me)", from the soundtrack of the John Hughes movie The Breakfast Club and their worldwide hit single "Alive and Kicking". The band has sold more than 40 million albums since 1979, breaking to the U.K. Top 40 chart a full 24 times.

Founding members Jim Kerr (vocals) and Charlie Burchill (guitar, keyboards), along with drummer Mel Gaynor, are the core of the band. It also currently features Andy Gillespie on keyboards and Ged Grimes on bass guitar. Formed in late 1977 from the ashes of punk rock group Johnny & the Self Abusers (which had only created one single), Simple Minds initially signed to Arista, who recorded and released their first three albums. As the the Self-Abusers, they had had a very raw and unpolished sound, playing their first gig in a Glasgow bar on Easter Monday in 1977. “When we were onstage it was mayhem,” Kerr later said. “No one could play a note. It was just white noise... took us about six months to become serious about it.”

The musical changes Simple Minds went through in these first three albums shows how diverse their song range is. Tracks to compare would be "Chelsea Girl", their first single with hints of Johnny and the Self Abusers that was inspired by Andy Warhol's pop art, and "I Travel", an almost disco sounding track, with "Someone", a loose yet energetic rock track that could have fit alongside the power pop bands at the Top of the Pops. The group grew major influence from the glam rock and post-punk ethos around them, particularly from the band's hero David Bowie.