Scottish rock group Simple Minds will continue to get the archive treatment from Universal with the release of a deluxe edition of their 1985 album Once Upon a Time and a vinyl box set of the group’s first seven albums.
Originally released in October 1985, Once Upon a Time became Simple Minds’ most successful album to date, selling two million copies in two months, hitting the top spot in the UK and making the top 10 in America. It spawned four top 20 singles and launched a fifteen-month-long world tour that kept Simple Minds’ name in the music weeklies for most of 1986. With Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain providing a production dream team, and Anton Corbijn contributing to its instantly recognizable artwork, Once Upon a Time had all the attributes of a classic 1980’s album.
In support of the album, Simple Minds undertook their longest and biggest tour yet, beginning in the USA in October 1985 (kicking off at Poughkeepsie on the 31st) and visiting mainland Europe, the UK, the USA again (now with The Call as support), Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. This included a series of massive outdoor summer concerts at Ibrox, Milton Keynes Bowl and Torhout-Werchter. Their first three top 10 singles from the album were signposts detailing the progression of the tour, and the fourth, Ghost Dancing, was released as the tour wound up, all profits being donated to Amnesty International. As Simple Minds took a well earned rest, after years of relentless writing, recording and touring, Virgin released the lavishly packaged Live in the City of Lights, a massive live souvenir of Once Upon a Time recorded over several nights at Le Zenith in Paris, which earned them their third successive UK number one.
“When I think of our most complete albums,” said Kerr. “I would say New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84) is definitely a complete album – it just feels very complete to me from start to finish; and I don’t think I’d change anything on Once Upon a Time and I wouldn’t change anything on Big Music. They, for me, are the most complete albums. Someone might say Don’t You (Forget About Me) should’ve been included; and when you think about it, leaving it off is rather eccentric thing to do – you wouldn’t get away with that now. It would’ve sold double the amount of copies though! But it’s very complete: the artwork, everything about it, it is bang on.”
To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of its release, Simple Mind’s classic album Once Upon a Time will be released on December 4th as a standard CD and a 2-CD Deluxe Edition. The remastered standard edition contains the full original remastered album, including the singles Sanctify Yourself, All The Things She Said and the timeless Alive and Kicking. The 2-CD Deluxe edition features the full original remastered album, as well as 13 single mixes, B-Sides and alternate versions, four of which have been previously unreleased.
The Vinyl Collection 79-84 brings together the band’s first seven albums – Life In A Day, Real To Real Cacophony, Empires and Dance, Sons and Fascination, Sister Feelings Call, New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) and Sparkle In The Rain – in one deluxe box. All of these albums have been remastered at Abbey Road and will be available on heavyweight 180gm vinyl.
Simple Minds had a particularly prolific and pioneering period going from predominately post-punk, glam roots (Life In A Day) through innovative Krautrock and dub-inspired studio experimentation (Real To Real Cacophony)– described by Bobby Gillespie as “really hard European disco”), into a fascination with European culture, with the influence of the likes of Neu! and Kraftwerk feeding into their third album, Empires and Dance, in just a mere two years. Exploring the use of sequencing, more progressive, textured soundscapes, soundtracking a lyrical journey through European culture and politics, Empires and Dance’s industrial sound was to prove ahead of its time, pre-empting later works by the likes of Cabaret Voltaire.
1981’s Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call was the band’s first release on Virgin Records. The release was, in fact, two albums, with the latter initially included as a limited bonus disc and later released as an album in its own right. Working with producer Steve Hillage, the band created the perfect symmetry between their previous album and elements of prog rock, which, bar fellow imaginative artists such as Magazine and PiL, many of their contemporaries were still willfully dismissive of. Following exposure to a much wider audience, thanks to a Peter Gabriel tour support, the single Love Song was an international hit. Both albums were to prove a massive influence on the dance revolution of the ’80s and ’90s, particularly Sister Feelings Call’s Theme For Great Cities, which proved so enduring, the band re-recorded it as a B-side 10 years later.
1982’s New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) was the album which began the band’s crossover as a major force in the pop music of the decade, reaching number 3 on the UK album chart. Working with producer Peter Walsh, the band was able to realize the sophisticated, accessible pop sound – whilst continuing their quest for experimentation – they were striving for. This achievement was reflected in three incredible and successful singles: Promised You A Miracle, Glittering Prize and Someone, Somewhere (In Summertime). The album even included a guest appearance from the legendary jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock (Hunter and The Hunted).
Originally released in February 1984, Sparkle In The Rain was Simple Minds’ sixth studio album and, following 1982’s crossover album New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84), the one to cement their commercial success, giving them their first UK number 1 (as well as a top 20 album in Australia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland). The album went on to be certified double platinum in the UK. The illustrious lyrics and the political and personal love songs were matched by throbbing synth-beats and piano flourishes, dominating new wave guitar chimes and swooning bass lines. Kerr’s song writing thrived on the band’s striving amidst a new emerging sound and direction. The album cemented Simple Minds’ reputation as one of the major bands of the 1980s and prepared the groundwork for the worldwide hit album Once Upon a Time.
The track list for the Once Upon a Time deluxe edition:
Disc One
Once Upon A Time
All The Things She Said
Ghost Dancing
Alive And Kicking
Oh Jungleland
I Wish You Were Here
Sanctify Yourself
Come A Long Way
Disc Two – Single mixes, B-sides and alternates
Don’t You (Forget About Me)
A Brass Band In Africa
Don’t You (Forget About Me) [Extended Version]
A Brass Band In African Chimes
Alive And Kicking [Edit]
Alive And Kicking [Instrumental]
Up On The Catwalk [Live] (Barrowland, Glasgow: 5th January 1985)
Alive And Kicking [7″ Remix Edit] (Previously Unreleased)
Alive And Kicking [12″ Remix] (Previously Unreleased)
Alive And Kicking [Kervorkian 12″ Remix] (Previously Unreleased)
Sanctify Yourself [Edit]
Sanctify Yourself [Instrumental]
Sanctify Yourself [Alternative Edit] (Previously Unreleased)
