Simple Minds -Sparkle In The Rain: 5 disc deluxe edition (March 2015)

I didn't say it was.

 

I'd have used Saturday Girl over Biko on Street Fighting Years for sure. It's been like that in my playlist for years now.

 

I put it in place of Mandela Day and the sequencing works very well. I've also moved Belfast Child into the 8 slot with Saturday Girl as 9. I tried working Sign O The Times in replacing Mandela Day and Biko but it didn't fit in very well.

 

Sign O The Times works ok if you put it after Kick It In on a 12 track album, gives Side 2 a more energetic opener, which was one of the problems with the album's sequencing. The outro to Kick It In goes quite well into the intro to Sign O The Times actually. You are right about Saturday Girl working well after Belfast Child, and it works quite well leading into Mandela Day as well. I think the more upbeat musical feel of Mandela Day makes it work better as a penultimate track than anything else.

I've put it like this (Preceding six tracks as normal):

7. Sign O' The Times
8. Let It All Come Down
9. Belfast Child
10. Saturday Girl
11. Mandela Day
12. When Spirits Rise

 

The order I came up with for Street Fighting Years is:

Street Fighting Years
Soul Crying Out
Wall of Love
This Is Your Land
Take a Step Back
Mandela Day
Kick It In
Belfast Child
Let It Come Down

I found it quite perplexing every time I heard the album that "Let It Come Down" wasn't the last song.

 

So-is the "corrected" Blu Ray Audio disc out/shipping now? Or will it be released soon? I'm just interested in the Blu Ray Audio Disc by itself -not the 5 cd super deluxe set

 

Mandela Day and Biko I usually skip, admittedly, though I love SFY (especially the title track). That record and Sparkle are my two favorites from the band. Saturday Girl is interesting but I'd also have liked them to found a home for the little instrumental Gaelic Melody they played on tour, with Lisa Germano.

 

All this talk about Street Fighting Years am I in the right thread to talk about SITR boxset? Before I talk about SITR I did just order SFY's as this album came out when I had just been married a few years and kids were on the way so did not pursue my music passion so this will be a new listen for me.

Okay onto this boxset, finally got my copy and have not checked out disk's 1-4 yet as the treasure to me is the 5.1 mix, i will be exploring the box more this weekend.
First listened to it in my home audio setup and don't you hate it when youve been reading so much negative stuff that that I believe it gave me a unfavorable first impression, the mix is not really that bad but yes their is something definitely amiss with centre channel set at a lower point in mix or rear channel's set more loudly, something is slightly off.
Not ideal for me as I am not one to want to adjust settings as I am lazy for one so next tried listening to the 5.1 in my Acura and it didn't sound to bad in there. I first listened with nothing adjusted and today have set the centre speaker to a louder setting and the mix sounds pretty good to me now.
Will be listening more to it over next few days to soak it in some more.

peter

 

In case anyone cares, I got the 2CD version and I quite like it. Yes, CD 2 is very loud, but that's ok with me. It's got a 20-page booklet (with no missing text!) with track-by-track commentary including numerous quotes from Jim Kerr from a 2014 interview with Paul Sinclair. I'm assuming this also appears in the deluxe booklet as well.

And yes, the digipak has one of those "Deluxe Edition" stickers wrapped around it. That's par for the course these days, though.

 

Also, this has probably been mentioned in this thread as well as the album-by-album thread, but it bears repeating: "A Brass Band in Africa/African Chimes" IS. SO. AWESOME. I had forgotten. Thank you Mick MacNeil.

 

I noticed the same thing with my ELS system in my Acura as well. I already had the center channel bumped up previously. I thought it sounded very good though. It'll be interesting to see what exactly is fixed.

 

Reckon that the SITR instrumentals (A Brass Band In African Chimes; Shake Off The Ghosts and the instrumental snipplet of the 12" of SYLTM) were edits of a longer jam sequence. The booklet's track commentary suggests something similar iirc.

 

I saw that somewhere but didn't think much of it. Anyone have Mick's "People, Places Things" solo discs? I picked them up long ago, thought I lost them and they just turned up the other night. Good listening but I can only listen to instrumentals for so long.

 

And voilà - a box set dedicated to the album. What better place to release the full version of that legendary instrumental, along with other outtakes and demos? Naw, not gonna do that.
As a non 5.1 enthusiast I'm not buying these, and the 12's mixes sound tremendous on the original vinyl.

 

As opposed to those 2 channel stereo guys who might be enthusiastic about surround if they actually had the equipment for it. That is the group I currently call "home"....

 

Nice avatar.

 

T'is very nice.................who is it? Bare in mind I'm in my mid-40's and took a blow to the noggin that not only forces you to retire but, also has you thinking you're an Osmond brother when you come to so my inability to recognize it is not a sign of a lack of hipness, coolness or whatever-ness so don't go there or I'll have to get my brothers to all smile at you at once, causing the permanent overlay of mouths full of teeth to be imprinted in your vision. And, I'll tell my mom.

 

It is Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini and the avatar is the album cover for Love In The Time of Science, a recommendation by our own @jamesc !

He is a "man of letters" and good taste.

How exactly did the Osmonds crash into a Simple Minds thread??

is

 

You can't see me but I'm golf clapping for you right now. I can't describe my heartfelt excitement in the first few moments after having learned about this. Think of it, your favorite album ever being re-released, remastered and packed with multiple discs filled with selections from the fairly decent amount of 12", live tracks, B-sides and various remixes that surrounded that period. All those great tracks out there and somehow the powers that be manage to come out with just "So-so" when compared to what could have been. I'm still waiting for my copy(apparently Grooves Inc. strapped my package to a ladybug with the hopes it would find its way here) but the consensus here is that the bonus material doesn't sound all that impressive and I would have thought the full version"Brass Band in African Chimes" was a no-brainer. I see it listed but know there's a long and short version, I'm assuming it's the short version and not what is in the Themes?
Why???? Why the half-assed job on this?
I don't own and 5 disc expanded, super super super deluxe versions of a single album but the Songs From the Big Chair edition seems to be a great example of how it's done. Why would the same crew release something apparently half-baked like this? These are questions that don't even consider the serious foul ups that result from the poor quality control. I would consider it something of an honor to be in charge of something like this and I would have hoped that the people charged with this were fans of the record to begin with and would have made it a labor of love. I would only expect of others what I think I can deliver and I know I could have done better.
Take the Big Country releases for example, very well done. Great sounding, great packaging, great selections with respect to bonus material. The only way I could have been happier with these would be if they had maybe a third or fourth disc of demos, live tracks...etc. As it is, there are examples of how to do this right and why the SITR team tripped up on this is beyond me.
You can't see me but I'm golf clapping for you right now. I can't describe my heartfelt excitement in the first few moments after having learned about this. Think of it, your favorite album ever being re-released, remastered and packed with multiple discs filled with selections from the fairly decent amount of 12", live tracks, B-sides and various remixes that surrounded that period. All those great tracks out there and somehow the powers that be manage to come out with just "So-so" when compared to what could have been. I'm still waiting for my copy(apparently Grooves Inc. strapped my package to a ladybug with the hopes it would find its way here) but the consensus here is that the bonus material doesn't sound all that impressive and I would have thought "Brass Band in African Chimes" was a no-brainer.

Why???? Why the half-assed job on this?

I don't own and 5 disc expanded, super super super deluxe versions of a single album but the Songs From the Big Chair edition seems to be a great example of how it's done. Why would the same crew release something apparently half-baked like this? These are questions that don't even consider the serious foul ups that result from the poor quality control. I would consider it something of an honor to be in charge of something like this and I would have hoped that the people charged with this were fans of the record to begin with and would have made it a labor of love. I would only expect of others what I think I can deliver and I know I could have done better.

Take the Big Country releases for example, very well done. Great sounding, great packaging, great selections with respect to bonus material. The only way these could have been better might have been just an expansion in the same pattern with some of the great live tracks and demos out there but as it is, these are some of my favorite purchases over the past year.

Edit: Looking at the track listing for the 2 and 5 disc versions where the 2 disc has both versions of "Brass Band" and I'm not sure if I've heard Brass Band in Africa without the Chimes. I'm all confused.

 

While I was in the hospital I would hallucinate the Osmond Brothers coming in and visiting me. I apparently called a very high ranking Air Force officer "Donny".

Let us now excorcise the Osmonds from the thread, they've served their purpose.

 

Just received this from Amazon regarding my Blu-Ray
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Isn't she a dish? Forgot how pretty she was/is. I was extremely close to the stage at the Mannheim show, so close that that invisible barrier between performance and audience didn't seem to be there.

On a side note, I was looking at my Silver Box and there's a picture that looks a lot like Michael with a fag protruding from his mouth but the caption says it's Charlie. Anyone have this and can anyone confirm who was in the photo? Just thinking this might be evidence of a bit of a pattern of poor editing and quality control when it comes to these Simple Minds sets.....perhaps it's more widespread and affecting other bands as well. I didn't think Charlie was a smoker, I knew Michael and Derek were.

 

As you already know sir, A Brass Band In Africa is simply an edit of the longer Chimes track, omitting the prologue and "reversing" epilogue.

 

I saw the reissued vinyl today - any reviews of that yet?

 

I knew it was an edit but I just don't think I've ever heard it. Also, when you call me sir I turn and look for a middle-aged balding male..............and then I see the mirror and have to suppress the urge to sob quietly.

In full disclosure I have serious gaps in my memory. I had to reread quite a few books that I knew were my favorites and reacquaint myself with a fair bit of music that I remembered listening to and being a fan of but I couldn't remember quite how it sounded. It was kind of like having a table of contents with chapters missing. Bell was rungeth hard.