- "To coincide with 5x5 Live, on 13th February, EMI Music will release the
box set Simple Minds X5. The box will feature all five of the albums over six discs - with
Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call
as separate discs in a gatefold sleeve – as well as bonus material on each disc including rare and previously unavailable B-sides and remixes." - EMI Press Release
- The project was initiated by EMI who suggested putting together a box-set of the band's first five studio albums. After thinking it was
a good idea, the band were inspired to tour only these albums, and so the 5x5 Tour was born.
- It wasn't decided until the last minute to add bonus material from the old singles.
- The bonus songs were grouped with their parent albums rather than chronologically with their single releases. This explains why
Kaleidscope and Film Theme Dub -
as Real To Real Cacophony out-takes - were grouped with that album and not
Empires And Dance - where they were released as single B-sides.
- Glittering Prize [Extended Theme] and
King Is White And In The Crowd [BBC Session] were originally included
on the New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84) CD, but space ran out. However, they
are available on the Themes Volumes for completists.
- The box-set did a good job of tidying up the early single releases but several edited songs and live versions were omitted.
- The cover art was based on the 5x5 Tour Artwork.
- I worked with designers Peacock to ensure the sleeve and CD labels were true to the original
Zoom-Arista designs.
- The initial idea was to recreate the textured sleeve of Real To Real Cacophony -
but this proved too expensive and so the texture of the original sleve was graphically reproduced.
- Sons And Fascination and
Sisters Feeling Call appeared as two separate discs in
a gatefold sleeve which reproduced both album's artwork.
- The 2002 remasters were used for the standard album tracks, whilst the bonus material was newly remastered in 2012.
- Seven promo CDs were circulated; a sampler and one promo CD for each album. Each promo featured the colour
artwork of the box-set. This was a suggestion by Quietus who wanted the promos to look far more eyecatching than the usual
typed sleeves.
- The Real To Real Cacophony promo CD was mispressed as Film Theme appeared twice.
- Some commercial box-sets were sent out as promos. These have promo stickers over the bar-codes.
- It was originally planned to include a small booklet with the CDs which would've listed all the album credits. This was dropped as the album
sleeves carried all the information.
- Two exclusive new tracks were made available for the first time: the original 1982 recording of In Every Heaven was finally released
whilst the German 12" Remix of New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84) started with the drumming fade-in - which was
only previously available on the album and DVD-Audio versions.
|
|