Once Upon A Time (Remastered) Simple Minds

• 1 Once Upon A Time (Remastered 2002) 05:45
• 2 All The Things She Said 04:16
• 3 Ghostdancing 04:45
• 4 Alive And Kicking (Remastered 2002) 05:26
• 5 Don't You (Forget About Me) 04:20
• 6 Oh Jungleland (Remastered 2002) 05:14
• 7 I Wish You Were Here (Remastered 2002) 04:42
• 8 Sanctify Yourself (Remastered 2002) 04:57
• 9 Come A Long Way (Remastered 2002) 05:07
• Total Runtime 44:32

Info for Once Upon A Time (Remastered)

Newly remastered! Originally released in October 1985, ONCE UPON A TIME became Simple Minds’ most successful album to date, shifting two million copies in two months, hitting the top spot in the UK and making the top ten in America. It spawned four top-twenty singles and launched a fifteen month long world tour that kept Simple Minds’ name in the music weeklies for most of 1986. And with Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain providing a production dream team, and Anton Corbijn contributing to its instantly recognisable artwork, then ONCE UPON A TIME had all the attributes of a classic 1980s album.

Following the release of SPARKLE IN THE RAIN, Simple Minds undertook a 30-date US tour supporting The Pretenders. The barely populated halls and disinterested audiences they played to, meant the album campaign ended on a flat note. Undeterred, the band regrouped at the newly opened Barwell Court in Esher, Surrey to rediscover their strengths, start writing new material and prepare for a serious of New Year Barrowland gigs for which they were assured a heroes welcome. They dug up old demos, took existing songs and played with their tempos, arrangements and melodies and tried almost everything to find those elusive ideas which would lead to new songs. As the November nights grew longer, the elegant Tudor buildings of Barwell Court started to echo to the beginnings of ONCE UPON A TIME, as recognisable instrumental versions of Ghost Dancing, I Wish You Were Here and Come A Long Way started to take shape.

The unexpected arrival of Keith Forsey forced a break in this routine. A&M, their shared American record company, asked the producer to try to coax the recalcitrant Scots into recording his Don’t You (Forget About Me). When originally approached about the song, the band had knocked it back, due to being busy and having reasonable success with their own material. But the band’s love of soundtracks meant they’d always had an eye on film scores and the offer of a film soundtrack was their Achilles Heel.

Forsey worked his magic on the band. They still weren’t impressed by his demo, but they liked his determination and felt the song could be moulded a little into their own style. They reluctantly agreed on the condition that Kerr could write some words of his own.

Don’t You (Forget About Me) was soon forgotten as Simple Minds started rehearsing for their Barrowland gigs. As far as the group were concerned, Don’t You (Forget About Me) was just another track on another soundtrack album: there was no talk of it being a single, there was no talk of it being the title track, and it was going to buried on a LP featuring several other big names. Yet the song started to take on a life of its own; the record company loved it, American radio loved it and so a single became an urgent necessity. Simple Minds were initially nonplussed by this attention, shrugging it off as it didn’t really matter in America, as no-one knew them or their music. But the situation in Europe was different and they quickly put a block on a European single release.

Following the huge success of their Barrowland gigs and the great reception their new material received – Ghost Dancing was played live for the first time – the group set their sights on the almost unobtainable Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain as producers for their new album. The success of Don’t You (Forget About Me) helped their cause, giving the band a welcome boost and extra publicity in the US.

Once they’d secured this dream pairing, the planning of the recordings finally fell into place. Final rough arrangements continued at Barwell Court until May 1985, when both Iovine and Clearmountain visited briefly to tie-up loose ends, listen to the rough demos, and in Iovine’s case, suggest and mentor the final compositional twists of Alive And Kicking. The material was sounding good and the band had the basis of songs like Alive And Kicking and All The Things She Said and various others.

Simple Minds started work at The Townhouse in June, initiating the formal recordings of the album with Once Upon A Time, Ghost Dancing, Alive And Kicking, Oh Jungleland, I Wish You Were Here and Come A Long Way. Further recording and mixing was planned for later that month in the rural confines of Bearsville Studios in New York State where Clearmountain was based; and final mixing was planned for Iovine’s New York City base at Right Track Studios.

The move to America and Bearsville nicely coincided with Live Aid. Simple Minds were never invited to participate in Band Aid’s Do They Think It’s Christmas? but were invited to perform at the live concert; and with Don’t You (Forget About Me) having just started its slow descent from the US charts, and the band booked into Bearsville Studios the next day to continue recording and mixing, then it made sense for them to appear on the Philadelphia stage. The day after Live Aid, the band drove to Bearsville Studios, to finalize the recordings and start mixing, now under the full-time guidance of Iovine and Clearmountain. Iovine’s experience of the American music business and his ear for a Stateside hit also shaped the sound of the album, which the band were fully open to.

Working with Iovine and his New York connections brought in many other advantages. The sound of Bowie’s Young Americans was still a major influence and Iovine suggested getting the same performers to guest on ONCE UPON A TIME. A phone call was made and in no time at all Robin Clark, one of the backing singers on Young Americans, was in the studio adding her distinctive backing vocals to Alive And Kicking, All The Things She Said and Once Upon A Time. The other backing vocalists brought in during the sessions included The Simms Brothers and Michael Been of The Call, who became a very close friend (the band would later cover The Call’s Let The Day Begin on their 2014 album, BIG MUSIC).

Jim Kerr, vocals
Charlie Burchill, guitars
Michael MacNeil, piano, synthesizers
Mel Gaynor, drums, backing vocals
John Giblin,bass
Additional personnel:
Robin Clark, additional vocals
Michael Been, background vocals
The Simms Brothers, background vocals
Carlos Alomar, background vocals
Sue Hadjopoulos, percussion on "All the Things She Said"

Digitally remastered

Simple Minds
Best known in the U.S. for their 1985 number one hit "Don't You (Forget About Me)" from the film The Breakfast Club, Scotland's Simple Minds evolved from a post-punk art rock band influenced by Roxy Music into a grand, epic-sounding pop band along the lines of U2. The band grew out of a Glasgow punk group called Johnny and the Self-Abusers, which featured guitarist Charlie Burchill and lead singer Jim Kerr. The inaugural 1978 lineup of Simple Minds featured a rhythm section of Tony Donald on bass and Brian McGee on drums, plus keyboardist Mick McNeil; Donald was soon replaced by Derek Forbes. Their early albums leaped from one style to another, with Life in a Day consisting mostly of dense, arty pop songs; critical acclaim followed the darker, more experimental art rock of Reel to Real Cacophony and the Euro-disco of Empires and Dance. The group began a transition to a more accessible pop style with the albums Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call, originally issued together and subsequently split up. New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) became their first chart album in the U.S., and the tour-shy McGee quit owing to burgeoning popularity, eventually being replaced by Mel Gaynor. Following the Steve Lillywhite-produced Sparkle in the Rain, Jim Kerr married Pretenders lead singer Chrissie Hynde (the two groups had toured together).

After Bryan Ferry rejected the opportunity to sing "Don't You (Forget About Me)," Simple Minds almost did so as well; Kerr was dissatisfied with the song's lyrics, which he regarded as formulaic. His change of heart gave Simple Minds their only American chart-topper, and the song later became an international hit as well; however, Kerr's feelings about the song remained ambivalent, and it did not appear on the follow-up album, Once Upon a Time. This album went gold and reached the U.S. Top Ten, in spite of criticism for its bombastic, over-the-top approach. A live album and the uncompromisingly political Street Fighting Years squandered Simple Minds' commercial momentum, however. By the time the group returned to more personal themes and its straightforward, anthemic rock on 1991's Real Life, personnel changes and audience loss left the group's future viability in doubt. But they weren't totally deterred, however. Kerr and Burchill trudged on, releasing Good News From the Next World in 1995 while the single "She's a River" received moderate airplay. A short tour of North America soon followed, but Simple Minds' direction also quickly faded. They needed a break to clarify their own personal stance in music. Derek Forbes returned for 1998's Néapolis, but that, too, wasn't strong enough to sustain Simple Minds' newfound creativity. Their famed pop songs had diluted a bit; however, the new millennium proved poignant. Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill signed to Eagle Records in early 2001 and constructed their first covers album, Neon Lights, later that fall, paying tribute to Patti Smith, Neil Young, David Bowie, and others. In summer 2002, Kerr and Burchill issued Cry, Simple Minds' first batch of new material since 1995's Good News From the Next World. Our Secrets Are the Same, an album that was intended for release in 2000, saw official release in 2003. An extensive reissue program and live recordings followed. Black and White, a new studio album, appeared in 2005, and the charting Grafitti Soul in 2009 (which saw the return of original drummer Mel Gaynor to the fold). Simple Minds accepted a spot at London's iTunes Festival that year and issued a digital EP of their performance. After a global tour, Simple Minds returned with Big Music in 2014, an album that included two songs co-written with Chvrches' Ian Cook.

This album contains no booklet.