Big Country-The Crossing

Big Country-The Crossing Now I was not sure about this one, in some ways it might be classed as Major label rock and for all purposes it was. But for those of us who missed the Skids in the first instance, Big Country’s debut album was a album which achieved success and spawned various singles. But all albums that followed failed to live up to the promise of the first album. Stuart Adamson was one of the truly gifted scottish songwriters that popped up in the 80s, although his pedigree was from the mid 70s. In the 80s you had artists like Roddy Frame, Ricky Ross(Deacon Blue). Stuart’s lyrics were very much working class in their nature in that he highlighted things that other artists could not. The hardship of the shipyards and life in scotland in the 80s, but what made his lyrics so good was that there was a romantism and hopefulness in the songs words, but the music also was very traditional in sound even using standard Eletric and Bass guitars. I think what Im trying to say is that a new listener would perhaps pick up that they were scotland from their sound, it was distinctive. There was also a despair in some of the lyrics, especially to the track of the following album Steeltown, check out East of Eden for example. Sadly Stuart took his own life over 10 years ago and has been sadly missed by the fans. Big Country continue to release and tour and have recently been joined by Derek Forbes(ex simple minds). In some ways its easy to see that bands like U2 and Simple Minds achieved success from building on the albums they had out in the 80s. Big Country remained the following but the chart success passed them by. The Crossing was a band at the start, the singles set them apart it was a shame they could not build on that. Big Country – The Crossing (Deluxe Edition)