Product Description

Picking up where the band's previous hits compilation, 1982's THEMES FOR GREAT CITIES left off, 1995's GLITTERING PRIZEcompacts five albums into 12 tracks. Because they were bigger critical and commercial successes, 1982's NEW GOLD DREAM,1984's SPARKLE IN THE RAIN and 1985's ONCE UPON A TIME are better represented than 1989's STREET FIGHTING YEARS and 1991's REAL LIFE. Those two albums are well enough represented by the few tracks contained here that their purchase may nowbe unnecessary for all but the most devoted Simple Minds fan.
The mid-'80s tracks, particularly "Up on the Catwalk","Promised You a Miracle", "Someone Somewhere in Summertime"and of course "Don't You (Forget About Me)", sound as good as ever. Their presence gives the latter tracks some added luster by their proximity.

Track Listing

1. Waterfront
2. Don't You (Forget About Me)
3. Alive And Kicking
4. Sanctify Yourself
5. Love Song
6. Someone Somewhere In Summertime
7. See The Lights
8. Belfast Child
9. American
10. All The Things She Said
11. Promised You A Miracle
12. Ghostdancing
13. Speed Your Love To Me
14. Glittering Prize
15. Let There Be Love
16. Mandela Day

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3379 in Music
• Released on: 1992-10-12
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
This compilation album is fascinating in that it tracks the dramatic artistic decline (and parallel commercial rise) of one the most successful groups of the post-punk era. "Love Song", "Promised You A Miracle" and "Someone, Somewhere In Summertime" see Jim Kerr and co. teetering like a cat poised on a fence, their sound a skittering, graceful interplay of glittering keyboards and adrenaline guitars, with Kerr's lyrics epic yet ambivalent on top. Then around the mid-1980s, Simple Minds fell from the fence into lumbering stadium rock rifferama. "Alive And Kicking" and "Sanctify Yourself" were big scarf-waving anthems but lacked the tantalising panache of their earlier work. As Jim Kerr sank further into megastardom, the music suffered further as he indulged in piously cumbersome ballads like "Belfast Child" and "Mandela Day". But while critics sighed, the Minds' audience swelled regardless--their "New Gold Dream" had come true. --David Stubbs

Customer Reviews

Altogether an accurate collection of Scotlands greatest.
I honestly had to laugh after reading some of the reviews of this album,the word cynical is quite frankly inaccurate. A greatest Hits LP is quite simply a greatest hits LP and all the hits in this collection are the bands most successful and well known songs, any real fans of the band would be happy with this album, infact it could and probably has generated new fans hence its charts success(rememder it kept Madonna of the no1 spot). Lets face it any band who has 2o years of music to pick from isnt going to pick the lesser known unsuccessful tracks for their first compilation this is not cynical just common sense.

A Good Summary.
I would like to provide a counterpoint to an earlier review stating that this was a cynical rework. Of course its, cynical - you don't need to go any further than the "greatest hits" subtitle to know that - and that's what the CD contains - The Hits, not unfortunately, the rather more inaccessible stuff they did prior to that. As a fan of their more successfull early to mid 1980's work and the "once upon a time" album as well as "Glittering prize" (probably my favourite) I believe this compilation does a fair job or representing the band in terms of their main commercial success. It's a good summary of the band - and great to listen to - I even motivated me to dig out some of the original 12" singles I have.

This business of slagging off work for being cynical or "not as good as their early stuff" is surely just denial. The album is good, and if like me, the majority of your SImple Minds collection is still languishing on tape or records that you no longer use, then this is a good re-introduction of the band - but of course, it only scratches the surface.

Oh-so-predictable Mind's compilation
As a fan of Simple Minds from their most embryonic work, 1979's Life In A Day and 1980's Empires & Dance/Real To Real Cacophony etc, I found the Glittering Prize compilation of their work just a tad cynical.

Between 1979 and 1984, Simple Minds were brave and adventurous experimentalists, whose brilliantly original music actually worked where many of their New Wave, avant-garde contemporaries crashed and burned. Thus it is a pity to find just a few tracks are included from this period, and nothing from their first three brilliant albums (where is the superb club-hit I Travel, or the sublime Calling Your Name ?). In fact at the time, with U2 as clear rivals, you could say that up until 1984, the Mind's certainly had the edge, especially with the release of the seminal 1982 New Gold Dream album, one of the 1980's true masterpieces. Then came U2's brilliant Eno-produced Unforgettable Fire, followed by Simple Mind's relatively forgettable Once Upon A Time... the writing was on the wall.

By the late-1980's, SM were trying harder and harder to sound more like a Scottish U2, ultimately failing (much as The Alarm failed to become a Welsh U2 hybrid), although much of their later output was still admittedly far superior to much of the tosh being released around them during this period (Oh Jungleland and All The Things She Said are still great songs).

This set tends to concentrate on singles from their stodgier, overproduced, stadium-oriented albums such as Once Upon A Time (1985) Street Fighting Years (1989) and Real Life (1991). Of course, this it is essentially catering for the mainstream masses who 'got into' Simple Minds during the mid to late-1980s, and who could'nt be bothered to go and investigate their earlier work. However, its has to be said that the Mind's remained a great live act throughout.

Most of the decent singles are here (Waterfront, Speed Your Love To Me, All The Things She Said, Love Song and Promised You A Miracle) as well as the duffer, over-manufactured stuff such as Belfast Child, Mandela Day and Let There Be Love, but this is sadly a predictable compilation that, for a band of this stature, perhaps deserved a double-CD set given the vast body of work at the compilers disposal. Perhaps then the public would have en masse access to the Mind's greatest ever moment, 1981's epic 'Wonderful In Young Life'... which they certainly were.