Customer Reviews

Real Life

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a truly great album. May I stress the word album? Yes, I think I will. What has unfortunately been lost in today's world of digital downloading is the TRUE ALBUM EXPERIENCE. An album experience where every song has its place and fits a certain flow. This is one of those albums. Track one feels like a track one. Track two feels like a track two. The last track feels like a great closer, etc. You get my drift. The album can be listend to straight through, taking the listener on a beautiful ride through all different themes, moods, and paces. I had already heard "See The Lights," "Let There Be Love," and "Stand By Love" on their 82>92 best of compilation. Those three tracks are all stellar, but I'd have to say my favorite tracks are the title track "Real Life," "African Skies," "Let The Children Speak," and "Banging On The Door." "Real Life" takes the title. The song is amazing. I seriously got my $$$'s worth with this track alone. I must have had it on repeat in my car for 3 straight days. Simply amazing. The video is great too, which you can see on their Visual History DVD. The emotion displayed in the singing of "African Skies" is unparalleled by most artists. I can continue but I think my point has been made. Buy this album for a truly rewarding listening experience. Anyone who writes this album off as over-produced or a sellout or adult contemporary needs to have their head examined. Not the case at all. Just true art with a fantastic effect.

Real Life could be easily cataloged as one of the best albums of the Scottish band and one of the best albums of the 1990s. After Street Fighting Years, Real Life is one of the most mature creations of this emblematic rock band. The album has an impressive and refined sound and with the re mastered edition it highlights its quality. Many of the songs not included in other compilation albums, really worth this album.

Jim Kerr has a positively enthralling voice. He shows it off on this album more than perhaps any other by Simple Minds. There should be more voices in rock that can actually sing as good as he can. True, rock n'roll isn't always about being pretty, but it's nice when a real talent like Kerr comes along.

When this album first came out, I almost rejected it off hand. I couldn't understand why they were playing these particular kinds of dance beats, why it was so light and polished and (gulp) borderline adult-contemporary in places. Soon, however, the excellent songs and craftmanship shone through for me, I adjusted to their new sound and - whaaaa . . . - reveled in the musical bliss.

Although a few tracks fall short of being excellent songs, most are truly great and enough to merit the 5 star rating. However, I still prefer older Simple Minds, like SPARKLE IN THE RAIN. If there was justice in this world, or at least on the airwaves, over half the songs on this album would be Top 10 international hits. Despite the great songs here which are upbeat and display a positive vibe, my favorite track is "Rivers of Ice" (which also took some getting used to). There's something so poignant about it to me. Anyway, thumbs up for this one.

It has songs to please all tastes. The one CD that resembles this one the most would be Once Upon A Time, followed along with Street Fighting Years and Good News From The Next World, mostly a Pop centered type of Rock that definitely gets you hooked up. I never thought I liked Pop-Rock music at all till I heard some of the songs on this album in the Glittering Prize compilation. I was a Metal and Rock & Rock die hard. I knew I had to get the CD where all those precious songs came from. I have to admit I got hooked up to Simple Minds with "Don't You Forget About Me" but if that's the only thing you've heard from them, you are in for a BIG surprise.

The songs I consider that stand out:

Real Life (introduced to me by "The Best Of" collection)

See The Lights, Let There Be Love and Stand By Love (I must admit these are the best songs of this CD all introduced to me by "Glittering Price")

African Skies and Ghostrider are average songs, African Skies with a catchy conga beat, and Ghostrider with a cool Rock N' Roll beat.

Banging On The Door (I gotta tell you from the intro to the end is a masterpiece, this was one of the surprises from this CD, I had never heard it before)

Rivers Of Ice - I love it (this one JUST by itself makes the CD purchase ALL worthwhile!)

Buy it, you Wont be sorry. I am a happy fan who owns about 12 of their CDs, one VHS and one rare single CD, this one being in the highest scale (My favorite is Sparkle In The Rain) Good Luck on your purchase!

I don't understand why Simple Minds 90s music is so overlooked. Maybe its just because there is so much music out there and not all of SM is instantly accessible. Let me tell you, the hooks are there and if you listen more than a few times you will be rewarded with music that makes you feel and has depth and staying power. Good News is a little dissapointing but well worth buying...Neapolis...if you can find it...is great. Real Life is probably the best of the these latest three. Don't overlook Street Fighting Years either.

I am one of those other "30 people". This album is simply magical. I do not know how how I discovered the Simple Minds but their music has truely impacted me. My favorite tracks are "Real Life", "African Skies" and "Banging on the Door". Do this: buy the cd, go in a quiet room and shut the door, turn off the lights and listen to the cd from start to finish. Then do it again.

I am pleased to be one of the few people who own this album; everyone else is letting the best in life pass them by. If I had to junk one song, I would reluctantly toss "let the children speak"-- Kerr gets a little heavy-handed politically at times (though I agree with him, usually). "Banging On the Door," "Real Life," "Rivers of Ice" and "When Two Worlds Collide" are somehow different than previous material, but they have everything you love about Simple Minds and everything you should love about music. If "Banging On the Door" was the only good song on the album, it'd be a bargain at twice the price. Cover to cover, it is simply a phenomenal album, and it's a crime that these guys (1) didn't make another like it ("Good News" isn't even a good-faith effort!) and (2) don't have the respect of critics, who seem to think Marilyn Manson-- who's got some nice tunes-- is more worth their time. If you're reading this, you know better. Buy it, and you'll see what the other 30 of us who own it are on about.

Looks like a few of us in here all agree on one thing, this is the band's near masterpiece.

Not everyone agrees, but as a person who did on-air Rock Radio for 37 years, I pretty much heard everything that was released during all of those years.

I love this band...period. But this is without question, their finest hour.

I agree with the previous reviewer - this is one of those albums I like to listen to as an album. I remember buying it for the excellent singles "See the Lights" and "Let There Be Love" and the title track "Real Life". However, this album grew on me quickly. The songs have individual character but flow together nicely - moreso than the somewhat similarly structured "Street Fighting Years", but I like this album better. The sequence of "Ghostrider", "Banging on the Door" and "Travelling Man" shows the versatility of Simple Minds and why they are to be considered one of the great rock bands of the late 20th Century.

Definitely an under-rated album.

Just for the sake of history, it's worth pointing out this was their 10th studio album in three decades (counting "Sister Feelings Call"), which is pretty remarkable for any group. Unfortunately, this one was headed in the wrong direction. Absolutely, the first cut is a knockout, and Charlie's guitar break on "See the Lights" is one of the best ever by anyone, fabulous. But all of sudden, even on that fine song, standard three-girl backup vocals start to intrude again, and the thing proceeds downhill into bombastic over-produced lows that were plumbed to the depths in the follow up, "Good News from the Next World". Is it bad? No way, everything on this CD is competent and solid, but it just isn't exciting or interesting, it's largely corporate rock.

This is a CD that any Mind's fan already has and enjoys, and four songs make my MP3 playlist (along with the first two, "Banging on the Door" and "Two Worlds Collide"), but it's a little difficult to recommend to new listeners unless they have bought the better albums and want more. In that case, feel free, because even "Good News" sounds better than 99% of the junk on the radio, as someone accurately points out below. How does relatively solid music like this get overlooked? I don't know, but one thing for sure, nobody will be writing reviews of Nsync's tenth album 20 years from now, for good or ill. So maybe it doesn't after all.