Simple Minds - Real Life (1991)

Real life has to be one of the most under rated and overlooked albums by Simple Minds and is without question a worthy inclusion in their back catalogue. It is also an album whose appeal had matured over the years and is in retrospect a better release than many of us considered it to be at the time. What prevents this album from achieving the full 5 stars are the American market orientated tracks `Ghost rider' and `African Skies' which don't really fit in with the rest of the album's direction, and the rather weak last track `Two worlds Collide' which is basically the title track with a different vocal and softer drums which fades away into not much.

This albums real strengths are not only the singles released from the album `See the Lights' (forgive me love I'm too proud to cry), `Let there be love' and `Real Life' but also album tracks `Woman', `Banging On The Door', `Let the children speak', `Travellin' Man' and `Rivers Of Ice' are superb. The production quality on this album is also very good. The sound is clean, crisp and punchy and a joy to listen to. I suspect that legendary producer and musician Steve Lipson's production played a part in this. Listening to the quality production on this album from the 90's begs the question why more recent releases from newer bands are not up to this standard?

The Amazon review does contain some inaccuracies as it declares Simple minds were a duo during this album. Mel Gaynor was definitely part of the line up that made and toured this album, I know this because I saw Simple Minds on tour during the Real Life tour and that was definitely Mel playing his drums. Another clue would the album cover which features Mel and also the linear notes where Mel is credited as the drummer. The Amazon review also unfairly accuses Simple minds of plagiarising their former output and also criticises their previous album `Street Fighting years' which happens to be one of the bands finest works.

The follow up to this album was the ponderous and less subtle `Good news from the next World' which really marked the beginning of the decline of Simple Minds musical output during the 90's which bottomed out with the disappointing Neapolis album. Fans would have to wait for over 15 years until the superb five star album Black and White 050505 until Simple Minds returned to the form of this album and its predecessors.

I paid the full price when this album was originally released and felt it was a good purchase, but now available at a much lower price, this is a bargain for an album of this quality. If you are a Simple Minds fan that does not yet own this album, then this is a safe purchase. You will enjoy this album, guaranteed.

Review by BD, Amazon.co.uk

One prize Simple Minds will never win is for being the most consistent band in the world. Some of their albums have been strong (New Gold Dream, Sparkle in the Rain, and Once Upon a Time, to name a few), while others have been weak and disappointing. Real Life isn't terrible, but play it next to any of those aforementioned albums, and you're reminded how much less inspired their writing had become by the early '90s. Though some of the songs are decent (including the catchy "Stand By Love" and the haunting "Woman"), the majority of them aren't very memorable. Only the most devoted Simple Minds fans will want this generally uneventful CD; more casual listeners would be much better off sticking to the band's mid-'80s work.

Review by Alex Henderson, Allmusic.com

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 21. December 2012, 23:47

Simple Minds / Real Life

Used drive : Optiarc BD RW BD-5300S Adapter: 3 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" -T "COMMENT=ripped by bvstudio®" %source%


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.33 | 4:53.32 | 33 | 22039
2 | 4:53.65 | 4:22.18 | 22040 | 41707
3 | 9:16.08 | 4:57.37 | 41708 | 64019
4 | 14:13.45 | 4:40.20 | 64020 | 85039
5 | 18:53.65 | 4:04.18 | 85040 | 103357
6 | 22:58.08 | 4:16.50 | 103358 | 122607
7 | 27:14.58 | 4:52.20 | 122608 | 144527
8 | 32:07.03 | 3:22.37 | 144528 | 159714
9 | 35:29.40 | 1:16.40 | 159715 | 165454
10 | 36:46.05 | 4:22.35 | 165455 | 185139
11 | 41:08.40 | 3:34.50 | 185140 | 201239
12 | 44:43.15 | 3:30.28 | 201240 | 217017
13 | 48:13.43 | 4:01.65 | 217018 | 235157


Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename F:\Simple Minds\1991 - Real Life\Simple Minds - Real Life.wav

Peak level 99.2 %
Extraction speed 7.2 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9C3A7A44
Copy CRC 9C3A7A44
Copy OK

No errors occurred


AccurateRip summary

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Track 3 accurately ripped (confidence 2) [30A13099] (AR v2)
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Track 11 accurately ripped (confidence 2) [08E81CD2] (AR v2)
Track 12 accurately ripped (confidence 2) [FF19D8AF] (AR v2)
Track 13 accurately ripped (confidence 2) [BD542037] (AR v2)

All tracks accurately ripped

End of status report

==== Log checksum 21FDC082639DC85BD9ABFF35690346B48AC0FB375FA4178202F039F0D5087FF6 ====

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Track | CTDB Status
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3 | (1997/2016) Accurately ripped
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Track Peak [ CRC32 ] [W/O NULL] [ LOG ]
– 99,2 [9C3A7A44] [55314521] CRC32
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foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2017-07-28 15:51:05

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Simple Minds / Real Life
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR8 -0.06 dB -11.18 dB 4:53 01-Real Life
DR8 -0.14 dB -11.42 dB 4:22 02-See The Lights
DR8 -0.06 dB -10.31 dB 4:57 03-Let There Be Love
DR8 -0.12 dB -12.40 dB 4:40 04-Woman
DR8 -0.06 dB -9.73 dB 4:04 05-Stand By Love
DR9 -0.07 dB -11.77 dB 4:17 06-Let The Children Speak
DR10 -0.36 dB -12.84 dB 4:52 07-African Skies
DR9 -0.06 dB -11.28 dB 3:22 08-Ghostrider
DR12 -5.84 dB -20.89 dB 1:17 09-Banging On The Door (Intro)
DR10 -0.23 dB -13.40 dB 4:22 10-Banging On The Door
DR7 -0.31 dB -8.47 dB 3:35 11-Travelling Man
DR10 -0.43 dB -15.30 dB 3:30 12-Rivers Of Ice
DR9 -0.24 dB -11.93 dB 4:02 13-When Two Worlds Collide
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 13
Official DR value: DR9

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 909 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================