Album review: Simple Minds - X5 boxset
SIMPLE MINDS ... X5 (Virgin Records)
THE best thing about boxsets like this is that in just a few hours, they lead you through a journey which originally took several years.
As its name suggests, this collection brings together the first five albums by Glasgow post-punks-turned stadium rockers Simple Minds, and what a journey it is.
It starts with their 1979 debut Life In A Day, which mirrors the work of contemporaries such as Magazine and The Cars to forebears like Roxy Music.
Despite opening impressively with the 1-2-3 of Someone, the title track, and Sad Affair, it is a patchy effort, which doesn’t rise above anything else around at the time. (6/10)
Real To Real Cacophony, released just six months later, sees a sharp shift away from pop stylings to a darker, more experimental sound.
Premonition, which opened side two of the original LP, and Changeling are the standouts. (6/10).
With electro music starting to really make its impact felt, Simple Minds’s next step was 1980’s Empires And Dance, whose high points include the under-achieving single I Travel and Today I Died Again.
Heavily influenced by krautrock, particularly Kraftwerk, it was a deeply ambitious album (7/10).
Fourth offering Sons And Fascination, which features the wonderful Love Song, is a strange affair, notably for also including what might be regarded as their fifth, Sister Feelings Call.
The latter was initially included as a bonus disc with the first 10,000 copies of the former, but was later released in its own right.
Here they’re on two discs, in a gatefold sleeve. (7/10 and 6/10)
Finally, New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) is the first step on the road to the stadium-filling, U2-emulating rock juggernaut Jim Kerr & co were to become.
Starting with Someone Somewhere In Summertime, it also includes commercial breakthrough Promised You A Miracle and Glittering Prize – a fan favourite to this day – and remains a classic of its time. (8/10) GW
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