The Dream Academy [IMPORT]

Dream Academy

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 31, 1999)
• Original Release Date: 1985
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Warner Bros UK
• ASIN: B000006YCO
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #64,952 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Life in a Northern Town

2. Edge of Forever

3. (Johnny) New Light

4. In Places on the Run

5. This World

6. Bound to Be

7. Moving On

8. Love Parade

9. Party

10. One Dream

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Nick Laird-Clowes's penchant for writing odes to tragic icons like Nick Drake and Edie Sedgwick paid off with the success of 1985's "Life in a Northern Town," a sleeper hit that brought the group's commercially stillborn debut album back to life. Dedicated to Drake, the lead track sets the tone for the British trio's dreamy set of sensitive baroque-pop excursions. On tracks like the pastoral "One Dream," Kate St. John's arsenal of classical instruments adds color to Laird-Clowes's folk-rock strummings, while Gilbert Gabriel's keyboards give an '80s sheen to the '60s sentiments of "Love Parade." Dream Academy even lured Pink Floyd's David Gilmour into the production booth, ensuring the group its own little niche in art-rock history. --Bill Forman

Product Description

1985 debut on Warner Brothers by this artsy English trio featuring Kate St. John. Out of print in the U.S., the top 20 album was co-produced by the band's Nick Laird-Clowes andPink Floyd's David Gilmour and features the cult hit 'Life In A Northern Town'. 10 tracks total.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mellower, lyrical unique music from the 80's, January 21, 2004

By	Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In the middle of an era dominated by the likes of Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Def Leppard, and Prince, came a group that was kind of an anomaly to the mainstream of the 1980's. For one thing, the instrumentation of The Dream Academy defies the usual guitar, bass, drums format, it's a melange of something undescribable, with elements of classical, jazz, and acoustic sounds, and much of it deals with the bleakness of the post-industrial urban world and the crushing loneliness and bitter travails of life, all with a lyrical and poetic base.

From the bleak blowing wind effect, the gentle strains of guitars, Kate St. John's oboe, and that famed "Ah hey ma ma ma" chorus, comes the single that sadly relegated them to one-hit wonder status, "Life In A Northern Town." The lyrics give a bleak picture of the town and the sad departure of the storyteller in the song.

"The Edge Of Forever" is a longing romantic song about how we miss the closeness and security we needed as children but not given as adults. Singer Nick Laird-Clowes asks at one time, "When you were young, did you ever fall down, graze your knee and want to run to someone? 'Cause now that you're older, I've been falling down, I want to run to someone, but there's nobody around." It's nice and lyrical in the verses, which explodes in a crescendo with keyboards and cello in the chorus. This is the song played at the end of Ferris Bueller's Day Off when Matthew Broderick and Mia Sara kiss and part.

"(Johnny) New Light" details the loss of innocence and a longing for a more natural life, and what happens when technology in the form of tractors make harvesting the wheat easier. "We have nothing else to do" Laird-Clowes and the backup singers sing towards the end.

"In Places On The Run" is a mellow, dreamy, and poetic piece, about walking through coloured fields, bazaars, watching flickering stars in the warm night, with great accompaniment by the assorted percussion and St. John's oboe and Laird-Clowes' strumming guitar whose tempo increases whenever he starts off with "What a dream I had" line beginning each verse.

"This World" is a wry social commentary about a lonely unemployed man who has to steal to make it, a girl trying to find company in a pub, and city elders who overreact to a beating. The chorus varies but its sober message is: "This is for the misunderstood lonely people/living in the world and getting nowhere/something always just goes wrong/why should they try to hold on to the dreams of this world/where they never quite belonged?" Another of my theme songs. Probably the second best song here after "Northern Town."

"Bound To Be" has a bouncy funk synth beat and features backing vocals by Caron Wheeler (Soul II Soul) and Sam Brown, Joe "A Picture Of You" Brown's daughter.

"The Love Parade" was the album's second single with dreamy vocals by St. John and how a summer love serenade can take hold of even those married for many years, i.e. extramarital love, in the case of this song, the woman.

With Dave Gilmour's acoustic guitar and Peter "R.E.M." Buck's Rickenbacker, "The Party" highlight the stifling discomfort, ego-destruction, and loneliness faced when the girl one brings to a party spends the night dancing with someone else. "I open up the window to get some ventilation, try to break away from the intellectual starvation" is why I hate parties. Small bits of "Northern Town", "The Edge Of Forever" and "In Places On The Run" done towards the fade. There's a classical aura with St. John's oboe and a nice string section.

What makes life worth is to "reach out for that one dream in your life" sings Laird-Clowes in "One Dream." What prevents that is being at war with yourself. Key lyric: "I woke up to find/life was just leading me on that's all/then I found out that I could reach it all." Some nice trumpet by David Defries accompanies this hopeful number.

This album was produced by lead singer Laird-Clowes and Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour. And the instruments used make them unique in 80's music, especially St. John's oboe, cor anglais, piano accordion, and tenor sax. Things got mellower and with some lighter moments in their followup, the underrated Remembrance Days.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Salvation Army band played...., April 6, 2004

By	Tim Brough "author and music buff" (Springfield, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"Life in a Northern Town" swept in like a breath of fresh air during the period when bands like the Thompson Twins and Human League were making dreamy sounding singles. There's a story that Dream Academy singer and writer Nick Laird Clowes, who had been fronting a punkish outfit called The Act, played a chorus for Paul Simon that basically went "Ah hey, ah ma ma ma away ah..." and Simon told him that if he could ever build a song around it, he'd have a hit.

Laird Clowes broke up The Act soon after their one album, "Too Late at 20" which featured bandmate Mark Gilmour, and decided to change directions. He teamed up with Gilbert Gabriel on keyboards and Kate St John on oboe and various other classical instruments to form the Dream Academy. Should Mark Gilmour's name strike you as a bit familiar, it's because he's the brother of Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. That connection was enough to score David Gilmour's participation as Dream Academy's debut producer, and with his help, the atmospheric "The Dream Academy" was created.

Laird-Clowes had found the lyric he wanted to drape that infamous chorus across, an ode to tragic figure Nick Drake. The rest, as they say, is history. "Life in a Northern Town" became a sleeper hit and pulled Dream Academy's debut into both commercial and critical success. It also branded them with one hit wonder status, despite the fact that two other Dream Academy albums were chock full of similar fine songs. On this album alone, there were two other notable singles, in "The Love Parade," and (from the movie "Ferris Beuller's Day Off") the lovely "Edge of Forever." Also worth noting is the appearance of Peter Buck on the near Shakespeareanish tragic "The Party."

It's too bad this CD is out of print, as it certainly deserves better than to be remembered as its single scattered across so may 80's anthologies. "The Dream Academy" is worth looking for in the used stuff, and maybe sometime we will be fortunate enough that Rhino will be kind enough to release their import only greatest hits. For now, the three Dream Academy CD's have a permanent place in my library.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An all-time favorite, May 28, 2000

By	Steven Guccione (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought The Dream Academy when it first came out. It is still one of my all-time favorite CDs. I've played it over and over again for 15 years or so and it still sounds great. I couldn't pick a favorite song on this one if I had to.