Jubilee Offer: Patriotic Classics for £2.50 |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
view the MP3 Album.
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Back in the mists of post punk 1981,my college mates and myself were HUGE simple minds fans.
Like one of your reviewers,I too found elements of this difficult(especially Jim kerr's scottish brogue and hard to work out lyrics)
true Veldt is at best fun at worst,poor experimentation: Cacophony a filler,but the album title:what self effacing humour
Yet simple Minds up til and including Sons and Fascination were innovative,and a 6 piece band,and they didn't sound like U2.(or Vice Versa)
From Mcneil's playful keyboards on carnival to the albums classic dark Premonition(a riff identical almost to the Eurhythmic's revenge) with Forbes classic bassline and charlie burchill's strangled lead this is truly a masterpiece.
unfortunately,most fans of the post New gold Dream era will hate this and it didn't chart.
Pity it's cutting edge and deserved more.
Listen to it,hear said Mr Burchill's last devestating solo on Changeling(I agree with a previous reviewer who attests to the obvious that this is not a weak track)and buy it together with the opening 2 albums plus sons and you'll hear simple Minds at their best and be mesmerised as we were as college students.
This album would be an indie classic if released today:it was a classic then.
Shame Jim Kerr and half the band soon split,the music became commercially cheery and a girlfriend of mine at the time,starting liking them(alive and kicking and she was very mainstream in taste).
so if you want challenging music buy it!
hopefully it will be reissued with lyrics,so i can finally hear all the lyrical mastery of premonition et al
Rob
Like one of your reviewers,I too found elements of this difficult(especially Jim kerr's scottish brogue and hard to work out lyrics)
true Veldt is at best fun at worst,poor experimentation: Cacophony a filler,but the album title:what self effacing humour
Yet simple Minds up til and including Sons and Fascination were innovative,and a 6 piece band,and they didn't sound like U2.(or Vice Versa)
From Mcneil's playful keyboards on carnival to the albums classic dark Premonition(a riff identical almost to the Eurhythmic's revenge) with Forbes classic bassline and charlie burchill's strangled lead this is truly a masterpiece.
unfortunately,most fans of the post New gold Dream era will hate this and it didn't chart.
Pity it's cutting edge and deserved more.
Listen to it,hear said Mr Burchill's last devestating solo on Changeling(I agree with a previous reviewer who attests to the obvious that this is not a weak track)and buy it together with the opening 2 albums plus sons and you'll hear simple Minds at their best and be mesmerised as we were as college students.
This album would be an indie classic if released today:it was a classic then.
Shame Jim Kerr and half the band soon split,the music became commercially cheery and a girlfriend of mine at the time,starting liking them(alive and kicking and she was very mainstream in taste).
so if you want challenging music buy it!
hopefully it will be reissued with lyrics,so i can finally hear all the lyrical mastery of premonition et al
Rob
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
First off: It's "Real to Real", not "Reel to Real" or the other way round.
I first heard the album as a teenager in 1986, which was the year that I first got into some of the most important UK new wave bands. Now, more than 20 years later I've developed this sudden obsession to get my hands on a perfect copy of the first release on the Arista label. The reason why the album didn't chart was because Arista hated this album so much that they just didn't bother to manufacture a high number of copies, it just didn't get the chance to chart properly. A real shame, because the original album came out in an amazing embossed (or "thermographic") dark blue sleeve with a great inner with many pix. But it was expensive in this form, so it died a quiet death with the imminent demise of the label itself. In my view every Virgin re-issue (on LP or CD) simply butchered the album's artwork back in the 80s and subsequently the label has gloriously failed to resurrect it for the special 2002 cardboard sleeve remastered version. Hence the 1st LP version on the Arista label remains the most complete one. No CD version has a reproduction of the unique embossed LP sleeve, but at least the digital sound quality has improved considerably.
The music is simply awesome throughout and hasn't aged too badly.
I just can't believe that Kerr, Burchill and Co did all this as "snotty kids" at the age of 20. Think of it: These were disco times: Village People, Patrick Hernadez, Donna Summer. This was something else, and especially something else like "Life In A Day", their relatively accessible debut album. of course, one can still sense certain influences of other bands like Kraftwerk ("Real to Real") and Roxy Music ("Premonition"). But a song like "Changeling" sounds more like a parody on disco music instead of some trendhopper. To this day I think it's a killer tune thanks to the harsh snaredrum sound of Brian McGee.
Plenty of alienation and aggression, but "Real to Real"'s closing tune "Scar" remains the most emotionally driven showstopper in comparison with those of the previous or next album, "Life In A Day" and "Empires & Dance".
This is the most intimate and non-commercial album the Minds have ever made and together with the following album they will probably always hold a dear place in my heart.
"Car passenger, Fate at the wheel, Quick kiss of death".
I first heard the album as a teenager in 1986, which was the year that I first got into some of the most important UK new wave bands. Now, more than 20 years later I've developed this sudden obsession to get my hands on a perfect copy of the first release on the Arista label. The reason why the album didn't chart was because Arista hated this album so much that they just didn't bother to manufacture a high number of copies, it just didn't get the chance to chart properly. A real shame, because the original album came out in an amazing embossed (or "thermographic") dark blue sleeve with a great inner with many pix. But it was expensive in this form, so it died a quiet death with the imminent demise of the label itself. In my view every Virgin re-issue (on LP or CD) simply butchered the album's artwork back in the 80s and subsequently the label has gloriously failed to resurrect it for the special 2002 cardboard sleeve remastered version. Hence the 1st LP version on the Arista label remains the most complete one. No CD version has a reproduction of the unique embossed LP sleeve, but at least the digital sound quality has improved considerably.
The music is simply awesome throughout and hasn't aged too badly.
I just can't believe that Kerr, Burchill and Co did all this as "snotty kids" at the age of 20. Think of it: These were disco times: Village People, Patrick Hernadez, Donna Summer. This was something else, and especially something else like "Life In A Day", their relatively accessible debut album. of course, one can still sense certain influences of other bands like Kraftwerk ("Real to Real") and Roxy Music ("Premonition"). But a song like "Changeling" sounds more like a parody on disco music instead of some trendhopper. To this day I think it's a killer tune thanks to the harsh snaredrum sound of Brian McGee.
Plenty of alienation and aggression, but "Real to Real"'s closing tune "Scar" remains the most emotionally driven showstopper in comparison with those of the previous or next album, "Life In A Day" and "Empires & Dance".
This is the most intimate and non-commercial album the Minds have ever made and together with the following album they will probably always hold a dear place in my heart.
"Car passenger, Fate at the wheel, Quick kiss of death".
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It's easy to imagine both the excitement and anxiety in the Simple Minds camp on completion of this, their second album. Dispensing wholly with the power pop of their debut, here the band had forged something that, while lacking cohesion and elegance, was very much of themselves. Possibly this is a result of the fact that the band were now writing as a group but their act of entering the studio without completed songs to record evidences a more radical agenda.
In fact, and this will seem a wild claim, there is something in this album that anticipates the spirit and manifesto of Kid A. Certainly it is not as self-conscious as its bastard descendant and it is eye-poppingly clumsy in places, yet - on the second side in particular - the band appears to have found its bearings in the new landscape that it has fashioned.
Changeling and Premonition were to be live favourites for the next three years, holding their own against the flood of excellent material the band would go on to produce, but it was the short, closing track, Scar, that most clearly demonstrated the band's rapid achievement of their own sonic territory and saw them emerge from the deep shadows of their influences.
Two stars for side one (mainly for effort) and four stars for side two.
In fact, and this will seem a wild claim, there is something in this album that anticipates the spirit and manifesto of Kid A. Certainly it is not as self-conscious as its bastard descendant and it is eye-poppingly clumsy in places, yet - on the second side in particular - the band appears to have found its bearings in the new landscape that it has fashioned.
Changeling and Premonition were to be live favourites for the next three years, holding their own against the flood of excellent material the band would go on to produce, but it was the short, closing track, Scar, that most clearly demonstrated the band's rapid achievement of their own sonic territory and saw them emerge from the deep shadows of their influences.
Two stars for side one (mainly for effort) and four stars for side two.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Don't you forget about this....one of the most fun albums ever made!
Rating: 9.5/10
Best tracks: `Changeling', `Film Theme', `Factory', `Calling Your Name'
Simple Minds went from a fairly okay band to a frankly blinding one... Read more
Best tracks: `Changeling', `Film Theme', `Factory', `Calling Your Name'
Simple Minds went from a fairly okay band to a frankly blinding one... Read more
Published 22 months ago by New Gold Dreamer
Real Cacophony
For me, this album was a step back between their debut (Life in a Day) and the glories to come. Burning down side one and tracks 1-4 now seem messy and incoherent and remind me of... Read more
Published on 24 May 2007 by Nicholas Casley
Most original post-punk recording
Simple Minds' work from 1979 to 1982 can not be over-rated in a review of post-punk UK music. By far the most creative band of this era they launched their golden period with Real... Read more
Published on 27 Jan 2005 by Timothy Plumb
Simple Minds begin to establish their classic, early sound..
Simple Minds sophmore release from 1979 (despite the confusing 1982, 1985 dates on my edition!)advances on the patchy debut Life in a Day and stands up well these days. Read more
Published on 5 Dec 2003 by Jason Parkes
Something to call style
This was at a time when they were searching for a style they could call their own . Here it seems as though they are in a bit of a mix between Life... Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2001 by filterite
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
