Simple Minds "Real Life"

Real Life is the ninth studio album by Scottish rock band Simple Minds, released in April 1991.[4] 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.

The album features several songs that are reworkings of older material or were reworked into new songs on subsequent releases. "Let the Children Speak" is based on the 1981 Simple Minds instrumental "Theme for Great Cities" from Sister Feelings Call. A re-recorded version of that piece, called "Theme for Great Cities '91" appeared as a B-side of the "See the Lights" single. "Travelling Man" bears some resemblance to the 1983 song "Waterfront" from Sparkle in the Rain. "When Two Worlds Collide" is based on the title track as is the 1995 song "And the Band Played On" which appeared on the following album Good News from the Next World. "Women and Ghosts" [included on the US edition of 1995 single "Hypnotised"] is a reworked instrumental version of the title track.

The original album cover was replaced in later pressings by the original rear cover shot of the band.

The album reached No. 2 in the UK,[5] and No. 74 in the United States. Four singles from the album were Top 40 hits in the UK, including the Top 10 hit "Let There Be Love". In the US, "See the Lights" reached the Top 40 and also reached No. 1 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Virgin reissued the CD as part of the Simple Minds remasters in late 2002 and early 2003. On the remastered version, a couple of differences are apparent when compared to the first edition: the 2002/2003 remaster features an extended mix of "Let There Be Love", not the one used on the first edition of the album, although it is not mentioned on the cover or in the booklet; the segues between tracks have also been re-edited, so that the running time of individual tracks may differ slightly between the editions; also, the CD version of the first edition had "Banging on the Door" split into two tracks in the disc's table of contents (running time was 1:16 + 4:22), but the music as such did not indicate any break between the parts. On the 2002/2003 reissue, the track is indexed as one.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Burchill and Kerr; except where indicated.

1. "Real Life" 4:53
2. "See the Lights" 4:22
3. "Let There Be Love" 4:57
4. "Woman" Burchill, Kerr, Lipson 4:40
5. "Stand By Love" 4:04
6. "Let the Children Speak" 4:16
7. "African Skies" 4:52
8. "Ghostrider" 3:22
9. "Banging on the Door (Intro)" 1:16
10. "Banging on the Door" 4:22
11. "Travelling Man" Burchill, Kerr, Lipson 3:34
12. "Rivers of Ice" Iain MacLachlan, Simple Minds 3:30
13. "When Two Worlds Collide" 4:01

Sarah McLachlan "Touch"

Touch is the debut album by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan, released in 1988 and then re-released in 1989.

The album was originally released in 1988 by Nettwerk. McLachlan later signed to Arista Records internationally (although remaining on Nettwerk in Canada), and a revamped version of Touch, with several remixed songs and a new track, was released in 1989 on both labels. The original 1988 release was discontinued by Nettwerk, and is now considered a collector's item. It is distinguished by its black and sepia cover. The first released single from the album was "Vox" in 1988, followed by "Steaming" in 1989.

The album was popular in alternative rock circles, but McLachlan would not achieve commercial stardom until 1991 in Canada, with Solace, and 1994 (1995 in some countries) internationally, with her 1993 album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. None of Touch’s songs would permanently remain part of Sarah McLachlan’s concerts: except for “Vox”, she has never performed any of her debut album’s songs live since the tours supporting Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, and even “Vox” has not been played since 2004.

In 1993, McLachlan and Nettwerk were sued by Darryl Neudorf, a Vancouver musician and former member of 54-40, who alleged that he had made a significant and uncredited contribution to the songwriting on Touch. Although both McLachlan and Nettwerk acknowledged that Neudorf was involved in the album's production, both took the position that his contribution had not been primarily in songwriting. The judge in that suit ultimately ruled in McLachlan's favor.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Sarah McLachlan, except where noted.

1988 release (Nettwerk/Capitol)

1. "Out of the Shadows" 4:57
2. "Steaming" 4:45
3. "Strange World" 4:05
4. "Touch" 3:11
5. "Vox" 4:50
6. "Sad Clown" 4:28
7. "Uphill Battle" McLachlanPhillips 4:37
8. "Ben's Song" 4:55
9. "Vox (Extended remix)" 6:59 *
10. "Ben's Song (78 Version)" 5:07 *

*Not all versions of the original 1988 release contained these two tracks.

1989 release (Nettwerk/Arista)

1. "Out of the Shadows" 4:57
2. "Vox" 4:48
3. "Strange World" 4:05
4. "Trust" Stephen Nikleva/Jeff Sawatzky/Sherri Iwaschuk/McLachlan/Phillips 4:45
5. "Touch" 3:11
6. "Steaming" McLachlan/Phillips 4:46
7. "Sad Clown" 4:28
8. "Uphill Battle" McLachlan/Phillips  4:37
9. "Ben's Song" 4:55
10. "Vox (Extended version)" 6:59

Two 12" singles were released from the original 1988 album, each containing one of the alternate mixes that were on some, but not all, versions of the album release. The remix of "Vox" here is not the same remix that was on the 1989 album release.

Prince And The Revolution "Purple Rain"

Purple Rain is the sixth studio album by American singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Prince. It is the first to feature the billing of his band the Revolution, and is the soundtrack to the 1984 film of the same name. The album was released on June 25, 1984, by Warner Bros. Records.

In the United States the album debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 the week of July 14, 1984 with approximately 1.5 million copies sold. After four weeks on chart, it reached No. 1 on August 4, 1984. The first two singles from the album, "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy", topped the US singles charts, and were hits around the world, while the title track went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Purple Rain was present on the Billboard 200 for a total of 122 weeks.

Prince and the Revolution won a 1984 Grammy Award for Purple Rain, for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, the four composers (Nelson, Coleman, Prince, and Melvoin) won Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, and the album was nominated for Album of the Year. Purple Rain also won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score in 1985. As of 2008, it has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, making it the third-best-selling soundtrack album of all time. The album was certified 13-times platinum (diamond) by the RIAA. Purple Rain is regularly ranked among the best albums in music history and is widely regarded as Prince's magnum opus along with his 1987 double album Sign o' the Times. In 2012, the album was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important".

Although it is not known if there is actually any connection, both Mikel Toombs of The San Diego Union and Bob Kostanczuk of the Post-Tribune have written that Prince took the title "Purple Rain" from lyrics in the America song "Ventura Highway". Asked to explain the phrase "purple rain" in "Ventura Highway," Gerry Beckley responded: "You got me."

Purple Rain was released by Warner Bros. Records on June 25, 1984. Prince wrote all of the songs on the album, some with the input of fellow band members. "I Would Die 4 U", "Baby I'm a Star" and "Purple Rain" were recorded live from a show on August 3, 1983, at the First Avenue club in Minneapolis, with overdubs and edits added later. The show was a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theater and featured the first appearance of guitarist Wendy Melvoin in Prince's band, The Revolution.

"Take Me with U" was intended for the Apollonia 6 album with Jill Jones on backing vocals, but Prince pulled it for his own album and according to Matt Fink, Prince reportedly played all the instruments on the song save for the string overdubs. "Let's Go Crazy" was also recorded with The Revolution while an unreleased version of "Computer Blue" clocking in at 14 minutes was a full band studio recording as well with various cuts some that are at least 14min long. "The Beautiful Ones", "Darling Nikki" and "When Doves Cry" are all Prince recordings.

Purple Rain was the first Prince album recorded with and officially credited to his backing group the Revolution, though he had teased the name two years earlier on 1999, writing "and the Revolution" backwards on the album cover. The band had been performing and recording with Prince without an established name.

Purple Rain was musically denser than Prince's previous albums, emphasizing full band performances, and multiple layers of guitars, keyboards, electronic synthesizer effects, drum machines, and other instruments. Musically, Purple Rain remained grounded in the R&B elements of Prince's previous work while demonstrating a more pronounced rock feel in its grooves and emphasis on guitar showmanship.

As a soundtrack record, much of the music had a grandiose, synthesized, and even—by some evaluations—a psychedelic sheen to the production and performances. The music on Purple Rain is generally regarded as the most pop-oriented of Prince's career, though a number of elements point towards the more experimental records Prince would release after Purple Rain. As with many massive crossover albums, Purple Rain's consolidation of myriad styles, from pop rock to R&B to dance, is generally acknowledged to account in part for its enormous popularity.

In addition to the record's breakthrough sales, music critics noted the innovative and experimental aspects of the soundtrack's music, most famously on the spare, bass-less "When Doves Cry". Other aspects of the music, especially its synthesis of electronic elements with organic instrumentation and full-band performances (some, as noted above, recorded live) along with its landmark consolidation of rock and R&B, were identified by critics as distinguishing, even experimental factors. Stephen Erlewine of AllMusic writes that Purple Rain finds Prince "consolidating his funk and R&B roots while moving boldly into pop, rock, and heavy metal," as well as "push[ing] heavily into psychedelia" under the influence of the Revolution. Erlewine identifies the record's nine songs as "uncompromising ... forays into pop" and "stylistic experiments", echoing general sentiment that Purple Rain's music represented Prince at his most popular without forsaking his experimental bent.

"Take Me with U" was written for the Apollonia 6 album, but later enlisted for Purple Rain. The inclusion of that song necessitated cuts to the suite-like "Computer Blue", the full version of which did not earn an official release, although a portion of the second section can be heard in the film Purple Rain, in a sequence where Prince walks in on the men of The Revolution rehearsing. The risqué lyrics of "Darling Nikki" contributed to the use of Parental Advisory stickers and imprints on album covers that were the record label's answer to complaints from Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center.

"There's every emotion from the ballad to the rocker," observed Jon Bon Jovi. "All the influences were evident, from Hendrix to Chic."

Track listing

All songs written by Prince, except where noted.

Side one

1. "Let's Go Crazy" 4:39
2. "Take Me with U" 3:54
3. "The Beautiful Ones" 5:13
4. "Computer Blue" (Prince, John L. Nelson, Wendy & Lisa; uncredited: Dr. Fink) 3:59
5. "Darling Nikki" 4:14

Side two

1. "When Doves Cry" 5:54
2. "I Would Die 4 U" 2:49
3. "Baby I'm a Star" 4:24
4. "Purple Rain" 8:41

The album was released as a Deluxe and Deluxe Expanded edition on June 23, 2017. The Deluxe edition consists of two discs, the first being a remaster of the original album made in 2015 overseen by Prince himself and a bonus disc of previously unreleased songs called "From the Vault & Previously Unreleased". The Deluxe Expanded edition consists of two more discs, a disc with all the single edits, maxi-single edits and B-sides from the Purple Rain era and a DVD with a concert from the Purple Rain Tour filmed in Syracuse, New York on March 30, 1985, previously released on home video in 1985.

Phil Collins "...Hits"

Hits (stylized as ...Hits), released in 1998 and again in 2008, following the success of "In the Air Tonight" on the Cadbury ad campaign, is the first greatest hits album by English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins. The collection included fourteen Top 40 hits, including seven American number 1 songs, spanning from the albums Face Value (1981) through Dance into the Light (1996). One new Collins recording, a cover of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors", also appeared on the collection and was a popular song on adult contemporary stations. Hits was also the first Phil Collins album to include four songs originally recorded for motion pictures (all of them U.S. number 1 hits) as well as his popular duet with Philip Bailey, "Easy Lover" (a UK number 1 hit).

In 1998, the album reached number 1 in the United Kingdom and number 18 in the United States. On 4 August 2008, it became the number 1 album on the New Zealand RIANZ album chart. In July 2012, the album re-entered the U.S. charts, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 when the album price was deeply discounted very briefly by Amazon.com. It has sold 3,429,000 in the US as of July 2012.

The compilation's cover features stylized versions of the cover art for Collins' first six albums, the collection's primary sources of songs.

There are other greatest hits compilations of Phil Collins songs. A collection of Collins's more romantic songs were released on a two-disc compilation titled Love Songs: A Compilation... Old and New. 1999's Turn It On Again: The Hits, 2005's Platinum Collection and 2014's R-Kive were greatest hits collections by Collins' original group, Genesis. Most recently, Collins released the 2016 compilation The Singles as part of his "Take a Look at Me Now" album remaster series.

Track listing

...Hits – Standard edition

1. "Another Day in Paradise" Phil Collins ...But Seriously (1989) 5:22
2. "True Colors" Billy Steinberg, Tom Kelly previously unreleased 4:34
3. "Easy Lover" (with Philip Bailey) Phil Collins/Philip Bailey/Nathan East Chinese Wall (1984) 5:02
4. "You Can't Hurry Love" Holland-Dozier-Holland Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982) 2:52
5. "Two Hearts" Phil Collins, Lamont Dozier Buster (1988) 3:24
6. "I Wish It Would Rain Down" Phil Collins ...But Seriously (1989) 5:28
7. "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" Phil Collins Against All Odds (1984) 3:25
8. "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven" Phil Collins, Daryl Stuermer ...But Seriously (1989) 4:51
9. "Separate Lives" (with Marilyn Martin) Stephen Bishop White Nights (1985) 4:06
10. "Both Sides of the Story" Phil Collins Both Sides (1993) 6:37
11. "One More Night" Phil Collins No Jacket Required (1985) 4:46
12. "Sussudio" Phil Collins No Jacket Required (1985) 4:21
13. "Dance into the Light" Phil Collins Dance into the Light (1996) 4:22
14. "A Groovy Kind of Love" Toni Wine, Carole Bayer Sager Buster (1988) 3:29
15. "In the Air Tonight" Phil Collins Face Value (1981) 5:30
16. "Take Me Home" Phil Collins No Jacket Required (1985) 5:52

Total length: 01:14:01

Track 1 features David Crosby on backing vocals.

Track 2 features Babyface on backing vocals, keyboard and drum programming, and Sheila E on percussion.

Track 3 features Philip Bailey on vocals.

Tracks 4, 11-13, 15 feature Daryl Stuermer on guitar.

Track 6 features Eric Clapton on guitar.

Tracks 8, 13 feature Nathan East on bass.

Track 9 features Marilyn Martin on vocals.

Track 16 features Peter Gabriel, Sting, and Helen Terry on backing vocals.

The original pressing of the album lists "Another Day in Paradise" with an incorrect running time of 6:22 and "One More Night" with a running time of 5:12. This is not the case for the Virgin pressing.