Simple Minds release 'Live in the City of Diamonds', a live album of all their hits which was recorded in Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome in 2024.

Simple Minds Scotland's Simple Minds evolved from artful late-'70s post-punks into global purveyors of pop grandeur with a string of U.K. chart-topping albums in the '80s that include Sparkle in the Rain and their global breakthrough Once Upon a Time, and built that success into a long-running career that has continued well into the 2020s. While the band was widely embraced in the U.K., Europe, and Oceania, it took the smash hit "Don't You (Forget About Me)," from the film The Breakfast Club, to break them in the U.S. Along with the similarly anthemic "Alive and Kicking," it is still their best-known Stateside hit, though they remained one of the U.K.'s biggest bands throughout the remainder of the decade. After 1989's Street Fighting Years and a series of personnel shuffles, Simple Minds' popularity faded somewhat. Founding members Jim Kerr (vocals) and Charlie Burchill (guitar) have made up the band's core partnership since its inception and over the subsequent decades have continued to mount successful tours and release high-quality late-period albums like 2014's Big Music and 2018's Walk Between Worlds. Following two live albums and a compilation, they returned to studio recording with 2022's Direction of the Heart.

STUNNING 1991 BROADCAST FROM MILTON KEYNES At the end of the Street Fighting Years tour in 1990, long-term Simple Minds manager Bruce Findlay was dismissed, and over the next few years the band gradually altered to the point where it was a shifting set of musicians around the only remaining core members, Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill. In 1991, Simple Minds returned with Real Life. The album's cover showed the trio of Kerr, Burchill and drummer Mel Gaynor, and the writing credits for all songs was Kerr/Burchill. The album reached No. 2 in the UK, where it also spawned four Top 40 singles. The band toured to support the release, playing as a basic five-piece (Kerr, Burchill, Gaynor, bassist Malcolm Foster and new keyboard player Mark Taylor) and cutting down on the extended arrangements of the last few large tours. On 24th August ’91, Simple Minds played the huge Milton Keynes Bowl as part of their Real Life tour, and for many fans this show was the finest of the entire jaunt. Performing for almost two hours in total that late summer evening more than 30 years ago, the entire gig was recorded for live FM radio broadcast and is now available in its entirety on this new 2CD set.

1980 was a huge year in pop music, and we have already included a fabulous selection of tracks on the vinyl versions of the 1980 Yearbook, the 80-84 Final Chapter, and the Vinyl Extra 5-LP box-set as part of our appreciation of the year. Those tracks were generally the bigger hits of the year, with their chart achievement a factor in their inclusion. However, that’s not the whole singles story of the year, and our celebration of 1980 wouldn’t be complete without shining a light on some of the years’ singles that have been compiled much less frequently over the years… 1981 was a seismic year in pop music, with a huge number of new artists making unforgettable chart debuts.

Good News from the Next World is the tenth studio album of original material by Scottish rock band Simple Minds, released in February 1995 by record label Virgin. The album garnered moderate commercial success; in the UK, it reached No. 2 and produced the two Top 20 hit singles "She's a River" (No. 9) and "Hypnotised" (No. 18).

Real Life is the ninth studio album by Scottish rock band Simple Minds, released in April 1991. This was the first Simple Minds album recorded without keyboardist and original bandmember Mick MacNeil, who left the band after the previous tour in 1990. The core band on this album comprise only Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill, and Mel Gaynor (who all appear on the rear cover), with the remaining personnel being session musicians.

2011 three CD set. 38 tracks. Compilation includes: Simple Minds, The Bangles, Talking Heads, Talk Talk, Robert Palmer, Kim Wilde, Maxi Priest, UB40, Rick Astley, Thomas Dolby, Dead or Alive, The Human League, Duran Duran, Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Erasure, Yazoo and more and more.

Street Fighting Years is the eighth studio album by Scottish rock band Simple Minds, released in May 1989 by record label A&M. Produced by Trevor Horn, the album reached the top of the UK album chart. Produced by Trevor Horn and Stephen Lipson, it was a major stylistic departure from the previous album, 1985's Once Upon a Time. While still maintaining the epic arena rock sense of scale and drama which the band had developed since the mid-1980s, Street Fighting Years also moved away from the American soul and gospel influences of its predecessor in favour of soundtrack atmospherics and a new incorporation of acoustic and Celtic/folk music-related ingredients including fretless bass, slide guitar and accordion. The lyrics built on the more political themes which the band had introduced with "Ghost Dancing", moving away from the impressionistic or spiritual concerns of earlier 1980s Simple Minds songs and covering topics including the Poll Tax, the Soweto townships, the Berlin Wall and the stationing of nuclear submarines on the Scottish coast.

After languishing for ten years in the rock wilderness, the Scottish stadium-shakers are back with Black And White 050505, which has been trumpeted by manyas a mighty return to form. And yes, Jim Kerr's vocals are still tremulously emotive, Charlie Burchill is as stirring as ever on his jangling, soaring guitar and the songwriting errs, as always, on the side of supersize anthem. But this spanking new effort, while powerful, boasts a distinctly ethereal quality, softening the stomping stridency of the Simple Minds we knew in the 1980s. Opening track "Home" flirts with an intriguing new sound, haunting yet uplifting with Kerr at his dramatic best, while "Sparkle In The Rain" shimmers with chiming glory. Packed with potential crowd-pleasers, Simple Minds may have stuck wisely with their winning New Gold Dream formula, but they've brought it rocketing up to date. Fans will be gleefully punching the air within minutes. Dissenters, well, they might just be converted.

That the opening bars to Cry finds Jim Kerr opining "It's difficult to love you when you do the things you do time and time again" almost implies that the hideously unfashionable Simple Minds are once again anticipating getting stabbed in the buttocks by poison pens and have decided to save their critics the bother by writing the reviews for them. Well, if that's the case, they've done themselves a little bit of an injustice. The good news–and from this world, not the next–is that Jim Kerr has not reneged on his commitment to making an indecently modest pop record, one where any delusional notions of stadium rock empires are held in check and where melody is a stronger currency than reverb and hot air. Although the cleaner-than-a-kitchen-showroom production is out of step with the contemporary, scuffed-up sounds of "now"–Simple Minds remain hamstrung by their own outmoded brand of professionalism–Cry has more than enough decent tunes to entice persons beyond the well-creased folds of their fan base.

Simple Minds release 'Live in the City of Diamonds', a live album of all their hits which was recorded in Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome in 2024.

Glittering Prize 81/92 is a compilation album by Simple Minds, released in 1992. It spans the period from Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call (the first album recorded by Simple Minds for Virgin Records) to Real Life. The album omits the earliest period of Simple Minds' recording career, which yielded three albums released on Arista (only reissues are on Virgin).

Fantastic 3CD box set with some of the greatest and long sought New Wave classics in their extended maximum versions. Filled with essentials from Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds, Talking Heads, The Blue Nile, Talk Talk, Kajagoogoo, Duran Duran, Power Station, Men Without Hats, The Human League, Rain Tree Crow, Scritti Politti, OMD, Living In A Box and many more.

Neon Lights is Simple Minds' covers album. Frankly, these projects often serve little purpose beyond announcing that the artists concerned have run out of original ideas. With the Simple Minds' new album of freshly composed material, Our Secrets Are the Same, now shelved due to legal complications, the Minds have opted to doff their caps in the direction of the heroes of their youth, such as David Bowie, Lou Reed, and the Doors. This is the material the band performed when they were scrawny Glaswegian punks called Johnny & the Self-Abusers. The arrangements here are slightly dated techno-rock efforts, albeit without the expansive pomp and bluster of their stadium-straddling 1980s heyday. Even so, Neon Lights is probably too respectful. Many of these numbers–Echo & the Bunnymen's "Bring on the Dancing Horses," Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World"–are identikit presentations, while electro-rock assaults on Them's "Gloria" and the Doors "Hello I Love You" are monotonous and misguided. A very interesting revision of Pete Shelley's "Homosapien" and a faithful, powerful reading of the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties" are much better.

Simple Minds signed to Chrysalis for Néapolis and saw the return of Derek Forbes on bass. Néapolis signals a return to form while remaining on the cutting edge. Unlike U2, the band they have been most often compared to, Simple Minds have not lost themselves in techno beats and processed samples. Longtime fans will embrace this album; from the opening track, "Song for the Tribes," through the two singles, "Glitterball" and "War Babies," one immediately recognizes that classic sound. Other standout tracks include "Tears of a Guy," "Superman V Supersoul," and a potential third single, "Killing Andy Warhol." The biggest surprise on the album is "Androgyny," a welcomed instrumental in the tradition of their earlier works (see Empires and Dance, Sister Feelings Call, and Sons and Fascination). It's nice to know that in the 1990s, one classic new wave band hasn't forgotten what it is all about. Unfortunately, Chrysalis felt there was not enough of a following outside of Europe to justify the worldwide release of the album.