- "I like the idea of very focused melodies, tight arrangements, commercial stuff. I said to
Charlie: "This is the only kind of music I want to make just now.
Let's try and go on the edge and do some real pop stuff." - Jim.
- There had been an effective hiatus of four years after 1998's release of Neapolis and
Our Secrets Are The Same became stalled in legal limbo. Jim spent
those years in Italy, both in Sicily and then Naples with local dance-rock alchemists Planet Funk.
"Probably two years ago there was a lot of crossover between dance and mainstream artists, Bryan Adams
for instance, and two or three people were asking if I'd be interested in doing that. It's not really my bag but
I said I'd come along and check it out, and through doing that, the process started again."
- Therefore it was decided to return with a more focused pop album i.e. short songs very heavy on melody, songs
really tightly focused in terms of arrangements.
- The first tenative trial recording took place in October 2000 where the band recorded a version of
Gloria.
- "We started in January [2001], we made a decision of wanting to go for it and we got really
excited about the early demos. Comeback albums are clumsy things, we just thought "Let's just do some work." We
were really starting to work the creative muscles again in a low-key way." - Jim
- Both albums (this and Neon Lights) were recorded
in Sicily and Glasgow during 2001.
- The first sessions included Like The Star You Think You Are,
Soul Destination,
NRG and
No More Black Days.
- As a warm up for the new material, the band (Jim,
Charlie and the multi-instrumentalist
Gordon Goudie) recorded several covers. This separate project emerged as the low-key forerunner
album Neon Lights.
- "In any modern recording, it's unavoidable to use some of the incredible technology that
is available now, and we ourselves relied very heavily on that same technology, I think in the most
positive sense. At certain times we three little studios on the go: one in Glasgow, one in Sicily and one
in Dublin. And by sending music files through the `net and such, we were able to enlarge our group." -
Jim
- The album became the most collaborative Simple Minds album written. With
Charlie's input down to two songs, the album also included
work from the Italian musicians Jim was working with
(Dino Maggiorana
D. Tignino and
E. Pat. Legato),
Planet Funk,
Mark Kerr,
Vince Clarke,
Sean Kelly and
Gordon Goudie.
- Some ideas originally for Our Secrets Are The Same were resurrected and reshaped, which gave
Kevin Hunter an additional songwriter's credit.
- An early idea was to compose the album quickly with Jim only singing on two or three songs,
with Mark Kerr singing on the others.
In the end, Mark only added backing vocals to his own composition Face In The Sun.
- The lyrics were kept deliberately simple and direct. This allowed the collaborations between the various nationalities to communicate
more effectively.
- One Step Closer was going to be the opening track of the album.
- To promote the album, Album Samplers were circulated which featured Cry,
Spaceface,
One Step Closer and an
Interview With Jim. This included a different mix of
One Step Closer which was the intended for the final master, but was mistakenly
swapped out at the last minute.
- The Floating World was the first track to be released from the album.
It was uploaded to the official site under the erroneous title Disconnedit, and
released rather anonymously by
Absolutely Records under the psuedonym Taormina.
- DJ and journalist Billy Sloan previewed Cry and
One Step Closer on his Sunday night radio show in February. He had to bow to pressure from the fans and also
premiered Spaceface,
Disconnected and
Sleeping Girl.
- The album's title wasn't settled until the last minute. In Germany, the title was erroneously given as Spaceface
on their teletext service and tour posters.
- "Cry was chosen as the album's title, not necessarily because as a song it
summed up the entire album - in fact I don't think one song sums up this
rather diverse album - but the cry in question for me... It's not a cry of
sorrow particularly, it could be a cry of joy. I just felt it was a very
sharp and focused word. "Cry" is a word and emotion that is understood
universally. And again, in keeping things as simple as possible. It
certainly leapt out as a potential album title." - Jim
- The limited edition was the first format available. Featuring a deluxe card package,
and the Cry video, the limited editions
were limited to 5000 copies across Europe. It was followed by the standard jewelcased edition.
- "In terms of themes of the songs, there are songs like New Sunshine Morning,
and One Step Closer, which if they're about anything in particular, they are
probably about an idea of some sort of rejuvenation, rebirth, and I felt
that in terms of getting involved in music again. It really did feel like a
new burst of energy." - Jim
- Following from the experiment with Neon Lights, singles were released with non-album tracks as B-sides
through Eagle with contemporary and classic remixes being handled by Absolutely Records. A pattern of
releases saw the commerical Eagle release appearing first, with the remixes following a couple of months later.
- The SACD version of the album arrived a year later, but was not noticably different.
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