Empires and Dance

Empires and Dance is the third studio album by Simple Minds, released in 1980. It charted poorly, peaking at only #41 in the UK Albums Chart. According to the Allmusic review of the album, this is primarily because the record company Arista only released a small number of copies at a time before each batch sold out. This had the effect of limited availability for fans. The opening track "I Travel" was released as a single in 1980, failing to chart. Following the release of this album, Simple Minds transferred to Virgin Records, where they met with much greater commercial success. Arista tried to capitalize on this success by re-releasing "I Travel" as a single in 1982, and again in 1983. Both times, it still failed to chart. The song's lyrics refer to European politics, as well as Brian Eno's first Ambient series' record, Music for Airports: Europe has a language problem, Talk, talk, talk, talk, talking on. In central Europe, Men are marching, Marching on and marching on. Love songs playing in the restaurants, Airport playing Brian Eno.