Silver Box

Silver Box
Box set by Simple Minds
Released 18 October 2004
Genre Rock
Length 5h18:29
Label Virgin
Simple Minds chronology
Cry
(2002)		 Silver Box
(2004)		 Black & White 050505
(2005)
Simple Minds alternate chronology
Real Live 91
(1998)		 Our Secrets Are the Same
(2000/2004)		 Neon Lights
(2001)
Simple Minds studio albums chronology
Néapolis
(1998)		 Our Secrets Are the Same
(2000/2004)		 Cry
(2002)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
The Guardian[1]
Martin C. Strong(6/10)[2]
NME(mixed)[3]
Uncut[4]

Silver Box is a 5-CD box set by Scottish rock band Simple Minds, released on 18 October 2004.

Overview

Silver Box is mostly made up of previously unreleased demos, radio & TV sessions and various live recordings from 1979 to 1995... and is also including—as a final bonus disc—their genuine twelfth studio album (of original material), Our Secrets Are the Same, originally recorded between April and June 1999 and originally planned to be released on its own in early 2000 but delayed many times and even cancelled until its final inclusion in this very box set.

Critical reception

The few professional reviews the compilation received commented on the previously elusive album Our Secrets Are The Same positively. Adam Sweeting, writing for The Guardian newspaper, opined, "The album, dating from 1999, was scuppered by legal wranglings, but it's some of the best music the band have made in 20 years. Tracks such as "Death by Chocolate" or "Happy Is the Man" recall something of their old pioneering spirit, and show a fascination with the process of recording rather than with prancing about in front of a sea of cigarette lighters."[1] He dismissed most of the third and fourth discs as evidence of the band's progression into "overblown" stadium rock, but admitted: "If you chucked out most of discs three and four from this beefy five-disc box, you'd be left with some fascinating insights and lost nuggets from the past and near-present of Simple Minds.[1] Rob Fitzpatrick writing for the NME agreed, saying, "By CD3, "Waterfront" - a neat throb of a single - is bloated into ten-plus minutes of wanky noodling and "Ghost Dancing" is so clearly in hock to U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" it's embarrassing. By CD4 it's time for "Belfast Child". God no! Miraculously, though, CD5 the band's 1999 'lost' album is almost wank-free."[3]

Uncut meanwhile admitted that the new album would be the main source of interest, but thought that the music still owed much to U2, writing, "It finds Kerr and Burchill still a bit in the slipstream of '90s U2 - tastefully epic, techno-fringed and extravagantly exasperated ("Death By Chocolate" and "Neon Cowboys") with the wickedness of a world gone wrong."[4] Martin C. Strong meanwhile, in The Essential Rock Discography, complimented the band's new music: "The album's savvy pop smarts harked back to their early 80s purple period, only underlining the shortcomings of Néapolis, while the sassy momentum of "Jeweller to the Stars" could've easily regenerated Kerr and Co's contemporary credibility."[2]

Track listing

Silver Box (November/2004. Virgin Records)

Disc 1
No. Title Length
1. "Life in a Day" (Live, London for the BBC in Concert Series, 8 September 1979)  
2. "Chelsea Girl" (Live, London for the 'BBC in Concert' Series, 8 September 1979)  
3. "Here Comes the Fool" (Live, London for the 'BBC in Concert' Series, 8 September 1979)  
4. "Changeling" (Session recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 19 December 1979)  
5. "Premonition" (Recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 19 December 1979)  
6. "Citizen (Dance of Youth)" (Recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 19 December 1979)  
7. "Room" (Recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 19 December 1979)  
8. "I Travel" (Demo for the album Empires and Dance)  
9. "Celebrate" (Demo for the album Empires and Dance)  
10. "Thirty Frames a Second" (Demo for the album Empires and Dance)  
11. "Twist/Run/Repulsion" (Demo for the album Empires and Dance)  
12. "Capital City" (Demo for the album Empires and Dance)  
13. "New Warm Skin" (Demo for the album Empires and Dance)  
14. "Constantinople Line" (Demo for the album Empires and Dance)  
15. "Careful in Career" (Demo for the album Sister Feelings Call)  
Disc 2
No. Title Length
1. "The American" (Demo for the album Sister Feelings Call)  
2. "Life in Oils" (Demo for the album Sons and Fascination)  
3. "Sweat in Bullet" (Demo for the album Sons and Fascination)  
4. "Love Song" (Demo for the album Sons and Fascination)  
5. "Promised You a Miracle" (Recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 11 February 1982)  
6. "In Trance as Mission" (Recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 11 February 1982)  
7. "Someone Somewhere in Summertime" (Recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 26 August 1982)  
8. "Glittering Prize" (Recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 26 August 1982)  
9. "Hunter & the Hunted" (Recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 26 August 1982)  
10. "The Kick Inside of Me" (Recorded at Maida Vale Studios, London, 11 September 1983)  
11. "New Gold Dream" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 5 January 1985)  
12. "Don't You (Forget about Me)" (Rehearsal for 'Live Aid', Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 10 July 1985)  
Disc 3
No. Title Length
1. "Waterfront" (Live at The Ahoy, Rotterdam, 3 December 1985)  
2. "Ghost Dancing" (Live at The Ahoy, Rotterdam, 3 December 1985)  
3. "Book of Brilliant Things" (Live at The Ahoy, Rotterdam, 3 December 1985)  
4. "Once Upon a Time" (Live at The Ahoy, Rotterdam, 3 December 1985)  
5. "All the Things She Said" (Live at The Ahoy, Rotterdam, 3 December 1985)  
6. "Alive & Kicking" (Live at The Ahoy, Rotterdam, 3 December 1985)  
7. "Sanctify Yourself" (Live at The Ahoy, Rotterdam, 3 December 1985)  
8. "Mandela Day" (Live at Wembley Stadium, London, 11 June 1988)  
9. "Real Life" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
10. "See the Lights" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
Disc 4
No. Title Length
1. "Travelling Man" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
2. "East at Easter" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
3. "Banging on the Door" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
4. "Stand by Love" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
5. "Oh Jungleland" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
6. "King Is White & in the Crowd" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
7. "Big Sleep" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
8. "Let There Be Love" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
9. "Ghostrider" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
10. "Belfast Child" (Live at Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow, 13 August 1991)  
11. "She's a River" (Live at the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 10 September 1995)  
12. "Up on the Catwalk" (Live at the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 10 September 1995)  
13. "Hypnotised" (Live at the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 10 September 1995)  
Disc 5 - Our Secrets Are the Same – twelfth studio album (of original material)
No. Title Length
1. "Swimming Towards the Sun"   4:33
2. "Jeweller to the Stars"   3:28
3. "Space"   4:16
4. "Death by Chocolate"   3:36
5. "Waiting at the End of the World"   3:26
6. "Neon Cowboys"   3:52
7. "She Knows"   4:07
8. "Hello"   3:23
9. "Happy Is the Man"   4:23
10. "Sleeping"   4:32

References

  1. 1 2 3 Sweeting, Adam (1 October 2004). "Pop CD reissue of Simple Minds - Silver Box: Review". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
  2. 1 2 The Essential Rock Discography - Volume 1: 970. 2006. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. 1 2 Fitzpatrick, Rob (28 August 2004). "Silver Box - Box-Set Of The Week". NME. IPC Media. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
  4. 1 2 "Simple Minds - Silver Box - Articles & Reviews". Uncut. IPC Media. October 2004. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
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