Best Simple Minds Album

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What's the one with Belfast Child on it? That album was huge amongst my peers at secondary school.

Herman G. Neuname, Monday, 23 July 2007 23:48 (sixteen years ago) link

Sparkle got dealt with yeah. The first half isn't that awful tho!

blunt, Monday, 23 July 2007 23:52 (sixteen years ago) link

Street Fighting Years #2! Hahahahaha you people have got to be kidding me.

Bimble, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 01:51 (sixteen years ago) link

I am puzzled so many voted for "Street Fighting Years" as well.

Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 08:42 (sixteen years ago) link

The winner is correct though, but it should have been by a landslide.

Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 08:42 (sixteen years ago) link

it's the same as with the UB40 thing isn't it? people actually don't know the early (better) stuff. me included.

pisces, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 14:50 (sixteen years ago) link

The early stuff was kind of unfinished. Surely it's better than the later stadium rock, but the one and only great moment was "New Gold Dream", which was a marvellous album. Very much of its time, yes, but then it was such as brilliant time.

Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 20:51 (sixteen years ago) link

I can't say I've heard anything by Simple Minds before the stadium rock stuff. Was always put off by the stuff I'd heard. I do like that song Chelsea Girl that the did on the old grey whistle test. Is the early stuff all like that?

Herman G. Neuname, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 23:41 (sixteen years ago) link

The early stuff is fantastic, quite postpunk/new wave, really good, recommended.

Trayce, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 00:11 (sixteen years ago) link

it's the same as with the UB40 thing isn't it? people actually don't know the early (better) stuff. me included.

Well, I'm relieved to hear that and I salute you for saying so. I wanted to take a guess this was the case for folks here, but didn't want to sound presumptuous I guess.

No, the early stuff isn't all like Chelsea Girl...they got more experimental and then gradually more atmospheric synth-poppy later. Much as I love them I still find the first album "Life In A Day" and "Reel To Real..." both leave me scratching my head. I'd say the safest thing to do is try New Gold Dream if you haven't heard it yet, or Sister Feelings Call/Sons & Fascination secondly. And this is coming from someone who chose Sparkle In The Rain as my fave. I am not ashamed! :)

Bimble, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 02:05 (sixteen years ago) link

I really do think that Reel to Real Cacophony is one of the best and most interesting post-punk albums in that it manages to be so bizarre and yet so pop simultaneously, and it touches on practically every single emerging development in the field circa 1978/1979.

Tim F, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 03:33 (sixteen years ago) link

i just heard LOVE SONG. that's great! is all the early stuff like that?
is there more that is, if not? a revelation.

pisces, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 09:43 (sixteen years ago) link

"Love Song" is great and while not representative of their early sound, it does reflect their post-punk roots. They were really all over the place when they were being creative and not trying to fill stadiums.

Based on earlier SM threads this year I tracked down the first Themes box. Wow! I had no idea their earlier stuff was so great. I compiled a nice best-of their first 4 albums and love it. I thought Jim Kerr's voice had played out in my life but I was wrong.

Mr. Odd, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 13:44 (sixteen years ago) link

Pisces, If you like "Love Song" I'd probably just go for the Sons & Fascination/Sisters Feeling Call cd, which contains it. "Love Song" is probably the most discoid thing on there, but the collection has a very consistent feel so you'd probably like the rest too, especially "The American". The album has quite an odd and distinct widescreen experimental rock feel to it - the fact that Steve Hillage produced it makes a lot of sense, it's their prog album basically. Its portentous rock vibe actually weirdly prefigures their later stadium sound in a way that their subsequent album doesn't. This is the first album where Jim Kerr tried to sing, er, grandly. But the songs are mostly very very strange despite their widescreen sheen - odd rhythms, complicated screwy melodies, tenuous choruses and most of them drift on for five or six minutes.

Then you could either go earlier to Empires & Dance, which is more discoid and dancey but much darker and explicitly artier. Or you could go later to New Gold Dream which is also very widescreen but explicitly preferences synth-pop over rock.

It was kinda weird how the albums seemed to flip back and forth between rock and dance-pop inclinations at that point (although never entirely in one camp):

Reel to Real Cacophony - rock
Empires & Dance - dance-pop
Sons & Fascination - rock
New Gold Dream - dance-pop
Sparkle In The Rain - rock

Tim F, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link

one year passes...

LIVE IN THE CITY OF LIGHT 1987:

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:7Q-qcwipEIteXM:http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41tjIESVxpL._SL500_.jpg

1. "Ghostdancing" 7:22
2. "Big Sleep" 4:27
3. "Waterfront" 5:21
4. "Promised You a Miracle" 4:38
5. "Someone, Somewhere in Summertime" 5:59
6. "Oh Jungleland" 6:35
7. "Alive & Kicking" 6:27
8. "Don't You (Forget About Me)" 6:37
9. "Once Upon a Time" 6:06
10. "Book of Brilliant Things" 4:53
11. "East at Easter" 4:20
12. "Sanctify Yourself" 7:06
13. "Love Song" - "Sun City" - "Dance to the Music" 7:02
14. "New Gold Dream" 5:31

Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You, Saturday, 13 September 2008 15:10 (fifteen years ago) link

Christ almighty! Street Fighting Years number 2! Real Life above Sparkle in the Rain! Neon Lights above 'I don't like Simple Minds at all!'. Zero for Life in a Day!

― Keith,

I keep reading that as if Keith is also saying Jings Crivvens & Help Ma Boab.

Pfunkboy Formerly Known As... (Herman G. Neuname), Saturday, 13 September 2008 18:32 (fifteen years ago) link

three years pass...

Should we revive this or have a specific X5 poll?

licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 14:40 (twelve years ago) link

there was some discussion re the boxset here :

Simple Minds, classic or dud?

mark e, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 14:50 (twelve years ago) link

X5 poll, and break up S&F and SFC.

These results are odd, is Street Fighting really that good?

Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 14:53 (twelve years ago) link

We need to run it again and again until Empires & Dance wins.

And I have been called "The Appetite" (DL), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 14:53 (twelve years ago) link

I'm with you on that!

Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 21 March 2012 14:54 (twelve years ago) link

These results are odd, is Street Fighting really that good?

Ha, this is like when Belfast Child won the Simple Minds singles poll

Valéry Giscard d'Staind (NickB), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 14:58 (twelve years ago) link

Tbh Street Fighting years was the first SM album I bought as a frustrated tween and I loved it for sounding "alternative" - a couple of months later I heard The Cure's Disintegration and forgot all about that album

licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 15:12 (twelve years ago) link

two years pass...

I'm never sure which one is the best, but TPL has endured Once Upon A Time, at long last: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/simple-minds-once-upon-time.html

agincourtgirl, Tuesday, 29 July 2014 09:52 (nine years ago) link

I'm happy Street Fighting Years almost-won this poll. I discovered SM as a Duranie with 'Don't You' (of course) but wasn't taken by the subsequent singles to such degree as to buy OUAT. I hated the rockist, echo-laden sound of the live album. Then I heard the Belfast Child EP, bought the album and was transfixed. Lost them again with Real Life - I was disappointed with MacNeil leaving. I've never understood the widespread hate for SFY. Yes, it has one or two minor songs, but otherwise the album is glorious (title track and 'This Is Your Land' my fav tracks) and, to my ear, it doesn't sound pompous/overblown/whatever at all. Epic, yes (that's the point). Anyway, 1989 - what a crop year for 'adult pop' albums (Gabriel, Bush, Byrne, Sylvian's 'Pop Song' single..).

Max Florian, Tuesday, 29 July 2014 15:28 (nine years ago) link

What a year for music in general!

licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Tuesday, 29 July 2014 17:43 (nine years ago) link

two years pass...

how the fuck did street fighting years get so many votes in this poll

akm, Monday, 22 August 2016 22:20 (seven years ago) link

very weird, I suspect foul play

brimstead, Monday, 22 August 2016 22:30 (seven years ago) link

It's a great high end stereo demonstration disc, I suspect. Trevor Horn basically going "Well I've done a few huge rock albums in my time, sure why not."

Ned Raggett, Monday, 22 August 2016 22:37 (seven years ago) link

What a Frankenstein's monster of an album:

The lack of equality and unity within the band's ranks soon became evident. Drummer Mel Gaynor was sidelined during the album sessions (apparently after disagreements with Trevor Horn) and was eventually demoted to session player status, with much of the drumming in the studio being performed by Manu Katché (from Peter Gabriel's band) and Stewart Copeland (ex-Police). Bass player John Giblin - who'd joined the band in 1985 for Once Upon a Time and played on the subsequent tours and the Live in the City of Light album - left the band during or immediately after the sessions, despite having made significant contributions to the album (including writing the ballad "Let It All Come Down"). The circumstances surrounding Giblin’s departure are undisclosed (although the band's previous bass player Derek Forbes has hinted that ultimately Giblin simply "didn’t fit in" with the band). Some of the bass guitar parts on the album were played by producer Stephen Lipson.

Ned Raggett, Monday, 22 August 2016 22:37 (seven years ago) link

I do love Wikipedia sometimes. Because when you think Celtic/folk music, you think of fretless bass:

While still maintaining the epic arena rock sense of scale and drama which the band had developed since the mid-1980s, Street Fighting Years also moved away from the American soul and gospel influences of its predecessor in favour of soundtrack atmospherics and a new incorporation of acoustic and Celtic/folk music-related ingredients including fretless bass, slide guitar and accordion.

Ned Raggett, Monday, 22 August 2016 22:39 (seven years ago) link

i can see someone liking it, maybe; but more people really like it than once up on a time?

akm, Monday, 22 August 2016 22:40 (seven years ago) link

In the UK, maybe.

Ned Raggett, Monday, 22 August 2016 22:40 (seven years ago) link


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