Promised You a Miracle: Simple Minds Expand Early Albums for New Box Set, Tour

In 1985, Scottish rockers Simple Minds burst onto the American music scene in a big way with “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” the chart-topping theme to iconic teen drama The Breakfast Club. Before their brush with John Hughes-induced fame, though, the band released a batch of increasingly successful post-punk and New Wave records between 1979 and 1982.

This winter, to coincide with the “5×5 Tour” in Europe, which will see founding members – singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill – leading Simple Minds through five tracks from each of those first five albums per night, that section of the band’s catalogue has been expanded and remastered for a brand new box set.

Simple Minds x5 includes the band’s first five records – Life in a Day (1979), Real to Real Cacophony (1979), Empires and Dance (1980), Sons and Fascination (1981), Sister Feelings Call (1981) and New Gold Dream 81/82/83/84 (1982) – all featuring the same remastering job as applied to the albums in 2002, along with between two and six newly-remastered bonus cuts for every disc. These include original B-sides, extended remixes and live rarities, all of which have been previously released on various singles in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

After the jump, check out the rundown of Simple Minds x5, available February 13 in Europe, one day ahead of the tour’s start in Lisbon, Portugal.

Simple Minds x5 (EMI SMBOX 2 (U.K.), 2012)

Disc 1: Life in a Day (originally released as Zoom Records ZULP 1, 1979)

1. Someone
2. Life in a Day
3. Sad Affair
4. All for You
5. Pleasantly Disturbed
6. No Cure
7. Chelsea Girl
8. Wasteland
9. Destiny
10. Murder Story
11. Special View (B-side to “Life in a Day” – Zoom ZUM 10, 1979)
12. Garden of Hate (B-side to “Chelsea Girl” – Zoom ZUM 11, 1979)

Disc 2: Real to Real Cacophony (originally released as Zoom Records/Arista SPART 1109, 1979)

1. Reel to Real
2. Naked Eye
3. Citizen (Dance of Youth)
4. Carnival (Shelter in a Suitcase)
5. Factory
6. Cacophony
7. Veldt
8. Premonition
9. Changeling
10. Film Theme
11. Calling Your Name
12. Scar
13. Kaleidoscope (Flexi-disc A-side – Arista ARIST 372-C, 1980)
14. Film Theme (Dub) (Flexi-disc B-side – Arista ARIST 372-C, 1980)
15. Premonition (Live @ Hurrah’s Club, New York – 10/24/1979) (B-side to “Changeling” – Arista ARIST 325, 1980)

Disc 3: Empires and Dance (originally released as Arista SPART 1140, 1980)

1. I Travel
2. Today I Died Again
3. Celebrate
4. This Fear of Gods
5. Capital City
6. Constantinople Line
7. Twist/Run/Repulsion
8. Thirty Frames a Second
9. Kant Kino
10. Room
11. New Warm Skin (B-side to “I Travel” – Arista ARIST 372, 1980)
12. I Travel (Extended Mix) (12″ A-side – Arista 12-448, 1980)
13. Celebrate (Extended Mix) (12″ A-side – Arista 12-394, 1980)

Disc 4: Sons and Fascination (originally released as Virgin V-2207, 1981)

1. In Trance As Mission
2. Sweat in Bullet
3. 70 Cities As Love Brings the Fall
4. Boys from Brazil
5. Love Song
6. This Earth That You Walk Upon
7. Sons and Fascination
8. Seeing Out the Angel
9. Sweat in Bullet (Extended Remix) (12″ A-side – Virgin VS-451 12, 1981)
10. In Trance As Mission (Live @ Hammersmith Odeon, London – 9/25/1981) (B-side to “Sweat in Bullet” 12″ –  Virgin VS-451 12, 1981)
11. This Earth That You Walk Upon (Instrumental) (B-side to “Love Song” 12″ – Virgin VS-434 12, 1981)

Disc 5: Sister Feelings Call (originally released as Virgin OVED-2, 1981)

1. Theme for Great Cities
2. The American
3. 20th Century Promised Land
4. Wonderful in Young Life
5. League of Nations
6. Careful in Career
7. Sound in 70 Cities
8. The American (Extended Mix) (12″ A-side – Virgin VS-410 12, 1981)
9. League of Nations (Live @ Hammersmith Odeon, London – 9/25/1981) (B-side to “Sweat in Bullet” 12″ –  Virgin VS-451 12, 1981)

Disc 6: New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) (originally released as Virgin V-2230, 1982)

1. Someone Somewhere (In Summertime)
2. Colours Fly and Catherine Wheel
3. Promised You a Miracle
4. Big Sleep
5. Somebody Up There Likes You
6. New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
7. Glittering Prize
8. Hunter and the Hunted
9. King is White and in the Crowd
10. Promised You a Miracle (Extended Version) (12″ A-side – Virgin VS-488 12, 1982)
11. Glittering Prize (Club Mix) (12″ A-side – Virgin VS-511 12, 1982)
12. Someone Somewhere (In Summertime) (Extended Mix) (12″ A-side – Virgin VS-538 12, 1982)
13. Soundtrack for Every Heaven (B-side to “Someone Somewhere (In Summertime)” 12″  – Virgin VS-538 12, 1982)
14. New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84) (German 12” Remix) (12″ A-side – Virgin VINX 1, 1983)
15. In Every Heaven (from New Gold Dream DVD-Audio – Virgin 72438 13171 9 8, 2005)

Another Year, Another Batch of “ICON” Titles

It’s 2012, a new year full of new catalogue opportunities – and yet another batch of our favorite ridiculous, vaguely pointless series of compilations, UMe’s ICON.

The generic collections pack nothing but hits into an 11-track set list, enabling the uninitiated to get a simple primer of their favorite artist for maybe $8 and change. This time around, the batch is very rock-oriented (mid-’80s Deep Purple, Anthrax, Cinderella, Uriah Heep) with some traces of late-’90s rap and R&B (Dru Hill, Ja Rule, BLACKstreet).

All the titles street next Tuesday, January 10 and can be pre-ordered on Amazon after the jump.

Mighty Love: Detroit Spinners’ Best Compiled On New 2-CD Anthology

If an award were given for the Best Second Act in Popular Music, it might well go to The Spinners.  Signed to Motown in 1963 after early successes at Gwen Gordy’s Tri-Phi label, The Spinners – singers Henry Fambrough, Pervis Jackson, Billy Henderson, C.P. Spencer and Bobbie Smith – had difficulty ascending to premier status at the Motor City label.  After some moderate hits like “Truly Yours” in 1966, the group’s biggest brush with the charts came in 1970 when Stevie Wonder gifted them the song “It’s a Shame.”  But when The Spinners couldn’t repeat its success, it really was a shame.  Adding to the group’s distress was the fact that G.C. Cameron, a pivotal later addition to the roster, was committed to Motown for a solo career.  When The Spinners’ Motown contract expired, they went in search of greener pastures.  They would find them far from Detroit, in the City of Brotherly Love, where producer Thom Bell (The Delfonics, The Stylistics) elected to take the group under his wing.  Armed with a new contract at Atlantic and a new singer in Phillipe Wynne, The Spinners were ready to take flight.

Their white-hot Philadelphia period, and beyond, is covered on the new 2-CD anthology from Demon Music Group’s Music Club Deluxe label, The Ultimate Collection (Music Club Deluxe MCDLX532).  (It’s credited to The Detroit Spinners, the name the group was given in the U.K. after the success of “It’s a Shame,” so as not to confuse them with British folksingers The Spinners.)  The 31-track collection lives up to its title, offering one more track than 1991’s A One of a Kind Love Affair: The Anthology or 2006’s The Definitive Soul Collection, both of which are out-of-print.  Both of those offered “It’s a Shame,” and the former even went as far back as the Tri-Phi “That’s What Girls Are Made For,” whereas Ultimate Collection concentrates exclusively on the Atlantic hitmaking years.  But it makes up for what’s missing by including a number of difficult-to-find tracks from the group’s post-Thom Bell years.

Hit the jump for a look at what you’ll find on The Ultimate Collection, including the full track listing with discography!

Come Fly With Me: Bobby, Peggy, Ella, Buddy Take Off With “Pan Am” Soundtrack

Following in the footsteps of Matthew Weiner’s 1960s drama Mad Men, Jack Orman’s Pan Am takes to the airwaves each week on ABC with a period-perfect recreation of the days when “the world’s most experienced airline” ruled the skies.  Now, the show’s impeccably-selected music can be yours to keep – and perhaps used as the soundtrack to your very own swinging cocktail party! – on Verve’s Pan Am: Music From and Inspired by the Original Series, due to arrive on January 17.  How appropriate that one of the most recognizable labels of the Jet Age will release the soundtrack to the series that celebrates the period’s glamour, sex appeal and style.

The CD’s fourteen tracks are a pleasing mix of the familiar and the uncommon, and the classic line-up has been bolstered by two new performances.  Grace Potter, of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, offers a new take on Bart Howard’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” while Nikki Jean puts her own spin on John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s “Do You Want to Know a Secret.”  Nikki Jean certainly knows her way around a great song, having collaborated with Burt Bacharach, Thom Bell, Jimmy Webb, Carole King, Paul Williams, Lamont Dozier and even Bob Dylan on her 2011 debut (and future classic!) Pennies in a Jar.

Buddy Greco’s fizzy version of Victor Young and Harold Adamson’s “Around the World” featured prominently in the Pan Am pilot, and it’s of course heard here.  From Verve’s own catalogue comes Ella Fitzgerald’s Songbook recording of Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies,” Shirley Horn’s interpretation of Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh’s optimistic “The Best Is Yet To Come,” and the original Stan Getz recording of the bossa nova anthem “The Girl from Ipanema.”  The era-defining bossa nova sound is also heard on Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66’s “Mas Que Nada.”  Peggy Lee offers “New York City Blues,” co-written by the chanteuse with Quincy Jones, and the travel theme continues with Dinah Washington’s “Destination Moon” and Connie Francis’ Italian take of “Quando Quando Quando” (recorded years before Engelbert Humperdinck popularized the song in English).

Hit the jump for more, including the full track listing with discographical annotation!