Best Simple Minds Album

Shoot, I forgot to make Johnny & The Self Abusers a choice. Oh well. If you vote for that here, I'll tally up the votes myself.

Empires and Dance

Oooooh tsss... close tie btwn E&D, New Gold Dream and Sparkle in the Rain.

Might have to go for NGD on "not a dud amongst them" grounds, and having loved it for over 20 years.

Actually I have a SM album on vinyl you dont mention here, called "Celebration". Is that just a compliation or something?

Reel To Real Cacophony is my fave, but Empires & Dance and New Gold Dream are only slightly behind.

Then Sons & Fascination, then Sparkles in the Rain.

Celebration is a comp of their first 3 or 4 albums though it contains one unique track, "Kaleidoscope", the b-side of "I Travel".

Tough call between Sons & Fascination/Sister Feelings Call and
New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84

"Celebration is a comp of their first 3 or 4 albums...." and it would have made that choice even tougher if it had been included in the list!

any love for once upon a time around here?

Reel 2 Reel Cacophony followed by Sister Feelings Call followed by Empires and Dance followed by Sons & Fascination followed by New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84.

Followed by swift descent into mediocrity and then sheer awfulness.

I'd rather listen to Street Fighting Years than Once Upon A Time.

Okay, where is it then? Where is the ILX System bump? The Rush album thread said it ended on the 24th and it got a bump. Why not this one?

Holy shit...JULY 23rd? My bad.

I voted for New Gold Dream in the end. Sentimental favourite, all the songs are just awesome. Though individually my favoured SM tracks are ones on Sparkle in the Rain, but thats ok.

That seems like a sound vote to me, but I would like to see some love here for Sister Feelings Call/Sons & Fascination.

Jim Kerr's birthday is July 9.

Now I'm relistening to Empires and Dance. I'd forgotten how arty it is, this is great. "Twist/Run/Repulsion" is awesome.

This is good housework music. Wait that sounds like an insult but no! It is getting me out of my blarrr mood.

I know, I know...I've been meaning to reinvestigate that myself. "30 Frames A Second"...

If Sons & Fascination/Sister Feelings Call weren't put together, I might have voted NGD instead. But no, it's S&F/SFC.

R2RC.

*gasp* Grimly! You outlaw!

For real? To reel? Really?

That's my favourite too Bimble.

I'm responsible
for my high school's obsession
with the New Gold Dream

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

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! :)

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.

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

"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.

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

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

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.

Should we revive this or have a specific X5 poll?

there was some discussion re the boxset here :

Simple Minds, classic or dud?

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

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

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

I'm with you on that!

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

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

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

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

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..).

What a year for music in general!

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

very weird, I suspect foul play

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."

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.

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.

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

In the UK, maybe.

Listening to "New Gold Dream" in the first time in.. I don't even want to think how long... I'd forgotten there was an instrumental halfway through it and how weird a singer Jim Kerr is.

Also Charlie Burchill is an awesome guitarist.

and street fighting years is your fave?

Also mad how Neon Lights got as many as 3 votes

sooommmmeoooone
somewherrreahhh
in SUMMMAH TIME

just heard Hunter and the Hunted on the way home in the car... so gorgeous, lyrics are incomprehensible

Thread revive also inspired a relisten. Was trying to think what the sound of it reminded me of, so I checked the producer credit.

New Gold Dream
Recorded: February–August 1982
Studio: Townhouse
Producer: Peter Walsh

Climate of Hunter
Recorded: October–December 1983
Studio: Townhouse
Producer: Peter Walsh

future simple minds bass player john giblin was on climate of hunter iirc

It was that album that inspired Walker to seek out Walsh:

For the last twenty-five years, Scott’s chief collaborator and producer has been Peter Walsh whom he hired on hearing New Gold Dream by Simple Minds.

This band were a lot better singing big songs about nothing that big songs about big things.

I did not know that about scott! That's very cool to hear. Am now singing all those songs in my head in a scott walker voice

sooommmmeoooone
somewherrreahhh
in SUMMMAH TIME

Probably my favourite on the album but then woah @ the bassline on "Glittering Prize".

Do I hear 81, 82, 83, 84?
I'll give you 81, 82, 83, 84

My fave is the title track, always and forever. The way those opening synths sound like a new day dawning.

I'd choose "The Big Sleep" for the way it patiently travels from earthbound riff and verse to transcendent chorus and coda.

Man I love New Gold Dream, not a track I skip. Have tried a few other SM albums (Sons & Fascination, Sister Feelings Call, Sparkle in the Rain) but they don't seem to compare. Tempted to give E&D a try though, after reading through this thread

Side 1 of E&D is my favourite side of any Simple Minds album.