I can't tell you exactly what I paid for this, but I'm confident it was less than 50 pence. In fact, I think it was my last selection in a buy-two-get-the-third-free deal. You detect my defensiveness already, don't you. It was the same day in 2007 that I got Sparkle in the Rain, And Then There Were Three and Moondance, among others, so… a good day's work? No.
By and large, I thought Simple Minds still had the quality control turned to "On" when this single came out in 1982. Here they are performing it on Top of the Pops
Typically sly-yet-fatuous comment from Steve Wright at the end, there. But what's going on with my hero, Derek Forbes on bass. He appears only occasionally, in shadow and from a distance, or, briefly, his fingers are shown playing the riff, but you can't see his face. So either he was away at his gran's funeral on the day, and the band's manager had to take his place on stage, or he must have done something to offend the director.
I thought the idea of a 12" single was to show the song in a different perspective, and to mess about with it a bit, let it stretch and breathe. This "club mix" version of Glittering Prize is just 20 seconds longer than the album version. Unless you're intimately familiar with the original, this mix sounds pretty much identical all the way through (I think the extra bit is just some keyboard-and-guitar jamming at the end) — if anything it's just a bit muddier. And the "theme" version on the B-side is simply the club mix with the vocal taken off.
A couple of years ago, my Jim Kerr dance impression had the Boy grinning from ear to ear. I tried it again when playing this, though this time just from the torso up, as I was sitting down. "What are you doing?" he asked. Then, "It's not good!"
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