Simple Minds [Album Covers]

1979 Life in a Day SR	1979 Real to Real Cacophony SR	1980 Empires and Dance SR	1981 Sons and Fascination / Sister Feelings Call SR
1981 Themes for Great Cities: Definitive Collection 79–81	1982 Celebration SR	1982 New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) SR	1983 Sparkle in the Rain SR
1985 Once Upon a Time SR	1987 Live in the City of Light SR	1989 Street Fighting Years SR	1990 Themes, Volume 1: March 79 – April 82
1990 Themes, Volume 2: August 82 – April 85	1990 Themes, Volume 3: September 85 – June 87	1990 Themes, Volume 4: February 89 – May 90	1991 Real Life SR
1992 Glittering Prize 81/92	1995 Good News From the Next World SR	1997 The Promised	1998 The Early Years 1977-1978
1998 Néapolis S	2001 Neon Lights SR	2001 The Best of Simple Minds R	2002 Cry SR
$[ 25 / 38 ] 2003 Early Gold Go back to 1993 and try to imagine this: Radiohead releases their debut album in April, skips right over the Bends/OK Computer era, and puts out their second album, Kid A, in October. It sounds inconceivable, yes, but a parallel situation actually happened, albeit in another decade to another band -- a band that eventually went on to fill stadiums and mar its best material in those venues with bloated egos, lengthy guitar solos, a plague of late-80s midrange, and other disastrous forms. Like Radiohead, Simple Minds started with a respectable debut that was contemporary but not exactly exceptional. However, there were hardly any traces of that band left in the second album, Reel to Real Cacophony, which came only half a year later. By the end of 1982, the band had released another three albums (plus one EP) and swept up millions of fans along the way. This period of the band -- one hesitates to say phase, since each album seems like its own phase -- is best experienced on an album-by-album basis. The straight-ahead post-punk of Life in a Day, the fractured whims of Reel to Real, the sparse disco of Empires and Dance, the expansive, echo-laden prog-pop of Sons and Fascination, and the bands crowning achievement, New Gold Dream, are each worthy of complete immersion. If thats too much to dig into, Early Gold is a very concise alternate that cherry picks the singles from those albums. And since the choices for the singles were nearly faultless, this is a good introduction to the group prebombast. Consistently great and unpredictable at the same time, the Simple Minds heard here stands in stark contrast to what came after their snowballing success.$ 2003 Early Gold SR	2004 Silver Box S	2005 Black & White 050505	2008 Themes, Volumes 1-5: March 79 - September 92
2008 Themes, Volume 5: March 91 – September 92	2009 Graffiti Soul SR	2012 X5 SR	2012 5 Album Set S
2013 Celebrate S	2013 Icon R	2014 Big Music SR	2015 The Vinyl Collection (79, 84)
2016 Acoustic SR	2018 Walk Between Worlds SR