Early Simple Minds - your favourite LP?

Bearing in mind that Simple Minds were once scrappy young Scots lads, emulating Berlin-era Bowie and similar dark sounds, and then became the band everyone loves to be indifferent to, I think they don't get their dues for inventiveness on those first five albums, which came out over just 2.5 years.

Anyway, I'm going for Sister Feelings Call. Just love that thump from the rhythm section and hard to believe it's seen as half an album.

 

Tough call between Empires, Sons, and Sister. Went with Sons and Fascination although The American and Theme for Great Cities are among my favourites.

 

For me its a live tape I recorded of the Radio of a BBC 'In Concert' they did, roughly between the first two albums. It has that punk aggression but also that electronic thing as well.

 

Sons & Fascination/Sister Feelings Call is tremendous still. Steve Hillage production too...

 

Whichever one has "I Travel" on it!
Memories of me, with fake ID, going into 'new-wave club' on Long Island, hearing this, and dancing my a$$ off!

 

Empires and Dance

 

I like them all but I voted Empires and Dance.

 

Great thread!
Except for Life In A Day, which I do like, I think they are all pretty much essential. But I went for Real To Real, which is a very brave and still confounding album splintering off in several directions. Premonition, Changeling, I Travel, Theme For Great Cities...so much awesome music in this era.

 

I'm bumping this one so it doesn't drown in the McCartney threads .

 

Sons and Fascinations, First and Second were more like experiments/demos, the more Derek was let loose, the better they got.

 

Anything but not Real To Real...I just don't like that one.

 

I was always a keyboard/synth guy but I think Derek was the most important part of the early Simple Minds. Still can see him playing with his somewhat unique way of bopping on the stage, two legs together, bending at the knee.

 

The 5X5 box that collected everything from this period blew me away. I always liked their high points but, really, it's all great. Equally influenced by the Sex Pistols and krautrock, the punk energy merged with the motorik best is perfect. It's hard to believe how badly they lost their way chasing the money.

 

I think the Minds did worthwhile music after 1982 too; but it wasn't the same band, or after Mick MacNeil left, not really a band but Jim and Charlie with hired hands, however talented. Guess you could divide the eras roughly into:
The Jim and Charlie Show: 1977-79, 1990-present
The "band" years: 1979-1985
The Jim and Charlie and Mick Show: 1985-1989

 

I went with Sons but it was VERY close in my mind with Empires.

Ask me tomorrow and I'd probably pick the other....

 

Can't really choose between Empires and Sons/Sisters, but I voted Empires simply because I absolutely love This Fear of Gods.

 

Life in a Day... for all its Bowie/Roxy/Doctors/Sparks-iness, it felt genuinely fresh and exciting at the time

 

For me it's a tie between Sons & Fascination and Sister Feelings Call. I like them all though. Sons/Sisters is my second favorite Simple Minds album after New Gold Dream, in fact at times it's my favorite.

 

I think "Sister Feelings Call" and "Sons & Fascination" should be one entry.

Hard to choose. And it still would be a tough choice if you had included "New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)" because apart from "Life In A Date" each of these albums could be my favourite. Today I went with "Empires And Dance"

 

Side 2 of Real To Real Cacophony is where things started to fall into place, and then with Empires & Dance they had well and truly arrived, so that's what I went with!

But you might consider adding a further option to the poll: the latter four (as the band themselves realized all too soon after its release, Life In A Day does not a good debut album make).

 

Yeah, I wasn't sure whether to lump them together, as they're two sides of the same coin, but I really do like one over the other, and I guess they were released individually.

 

Empires and Dance

Sons & Fascination
Sister Feelings Call

 

Life In A Day, for sure. Too many great songs on there. Aside from the singles, Empires is difficultly experimental.

 

As others have said, it's a tough choice between Empires and Dance and Sons/Sister. In a pinch I'd probably pick Sister Feelings Call. I'm not a fan of Life in a Day at all, it just doesn't gel for me.

 

Real to Real or Empires, Deluxe editions of both please.

Empires probably just shades it.