Simple Minds - New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)

Great price! Featuring 9 tracks spanning 4 years including'Someone, Somewhere In Summertime', 'Catherine Wheel', 'Promised You A Miracle' & 'Big Sleep'. Album Description

Awsemoe

Simply awesome album! Probably my most favorite from all SM albums. Very dreamy, well produced. I especially like to listen to it at night, when all is quiet, and with the lights off. And it never got old in the last 20 years... July 18, 2008

old new gold

Had the original on vinyl you know the translucent one with the colours swirling in it so sorry i cant seem to find it anymore. but the memories are just great still. put this on and close your eyes its seems to lift you even only in spirit. February 17, 2008

Kerr in the Community

Dazzled by the iridescence of `Glittering Prize', this startled reviewer could easily be duped into thinking that the rest of `New Gold Dream' would come hurtling apologetically in on it's shirt-tails.
It is SUCH a good song, all glammed up and sinewy, with a killer ethereal chorus, Jim Kerr's deep echoey vocal sending a chill down even the most resistant spine.
But, one swallow doesn't make a summer, and it's a big ask of anyone, to come up with a whole album which can stand eye-to-eye with it's wistful, beautiful offspring.
Fortunately, `NGD' does.
It's superb. Nine exceptional songs, cosseted in a thick, viscous, production that allows them complete freedom to move into your consciousness and lurk there, long after you've finished listening.
On the first few hearings it sounds like our sad ole friend `Stad-Rock' is rearing it's artless and pointless head again, but patience is giver of lasting reward here. Perseverance reveals all kinds of depth and nuance in the music, certainly above and beyond the highly polished veneer.
`Prize' itself is tucked away in a corner, but this of course only goes to heighten it's glory. The non-trumpeting of this neo-classic, in a way, sums up the recklessly brilliant core of `NGD'
It sounds so effortless, you get the feeling they just knocked it together in a few hours. That the ideas came thick and fast one rainy Scottish afternoon (there is no other kind). The deep, fluid melodies broke through, bathed in some kind of artistic Borealis half-light, as the Simples lounged around a trendy café, smoking ciggies and quaffing expensive lager.
It even has, right at it's heart (shock! horror!), that contradiction in terms, that elusive rock leper- the (gasp!) interesting instrumental! Honest! Right in the middle!
As if the shock of that wasn't enough, the following title track, cranks the excellence quota up to another level again. It's one of a series of songs here, blessed with some kind of innate grace, a tight, whirling elan. They expand, draw you in rather than push you away.
The more you listen to `NGD`, the more you realise the little grain of good taste you thought it was, has become a mountain of good sense, and you'll know in your heart of hearts, it's what you (we!?) NEED.
Good songs, intelligently presented, is always a winning proposition, and coming after TWO previous storming albums, `Reel to Real Cacophany' and `Sons and Fascination' this is a peak of peaks in SM's ascendancy. Unfortunately the next album `Sparkle in the Rain' was the beginning of the sad (but utterly unavoidable) decline.
Enjoy this one, a stunning album by a group at the absolute apex of it's powers. Full of confidence and verve, delivering top notch soulful, atmospheric, sensuous anthems, almost nonchalantly.
Literally, a glittering prize.



January 23, 2008

Old GOLD Still a Treasure!

On this album, Simple Minds evolved from their brilliant underground electro-art-rock to, well, more accessible versions of the same thing. Although I love their previous phase, the band sounds more relaxed and natural on NEW GOLD DREAM (a bit like the change from Tears for Fears' THE HURTING to SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR).

Every song here is great except I really can't take "Promised You a Miracle" (the biggest hit, no less) which sounds like annoying, cheesy disco to me (obviously an unorthodox opinion, but to each his own). Typically, I skip it. "New Gold Dream" and "Glittering Prize" are also disco-tinged, but I like those two a lot. They're very up-beat with great melodies.

"Someone, Somewhere in Summertime" is one of those magical songs that warms the heart and, for me at least, evokes an indescribable feeling of nostalgia, even when I first heard it. I also really like the more "relaxed" songs like "Hunter and the Hunted" featuring a frantic-fingered Herbie Hancock (!) and the hypnotic "Big Sleep." "King is White and in the Crowd" is also hypnotic and dreamy.

The album's sound fits perfectly into the time it was made (1982), yet it doesn't sound dated, at least not in any negative way. If this is a quasi-disco album, so be it. Jim Kerr could be seen as letting his soul shine through a bit more on this one (which he continued to do more and more on subsequent albums). The band follows suit; everyone seems to have lightened up for this one. I'll always go back to this album.

(this review pertains to the original issue - haven't heard the remaster) May 28, 2006

I'd give them more stars if I could

Man, I am so glad I finally grabbed this album on CD - it's just as cool now as it was when it first came out. It was one of my favorites back in the stone age when I was sixteen, and the album still speaks to me (and makes me want to blast it on my stereo). It just kills me that the Simple Minds are basically equated with that miserable "Alive and Kicking," but on the same token, a sellout's a sellout. Before that happened, though, the Simple Minds were a cutting-edge band that, to me at least, seem as innovative as Visage a few years before and Klaus Nomi, among others. Empires and Dance was the album that first turned me on to the group, and I immediately ran out and also bought Sister Feelings Call. I'd say that New Gold Dream is probably a little more accessable than their earlier albums, but don't discount their early stuff - it's experimental and truly innovative. The earlier stuff also, to me at least, also carries echoes of Brian Eno. Just the best! I wound up leaving the Simple Minds behind during the whole Breakfast Club thing (was I the only teenager that hated that movie?), but I'm kind of thinking of buying their newest, Black and White 050505 - an import right now, and of course no samples, GRR! Anyway, buy this album - I can't recommend it enough - it's like coming across a great friend you haven't seen in years and didn't realize how much he/she was missed. May 3, 2006

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