The Dream Academy – The 12” Single Collection

Thanks largely to their near-perfect debut album and single, The Dream Academy attained a cult following in America, Japan and The United Kingdom.  The band displayed lyrical intellect over fresh and memorable melodies, combined with sophisticated (and largely acoustic) musical arrangements.   

Signed to Geoff Travis’[i] & Mike Alway’s[ii] Blanco y Negro label, the band combined the spirit of early 80s Pillows & Prayers indie-innocence with late 60s hippy sensibility.  With the multi-national financial clout of The Warner Music Group, the band should have realised considerable global success.  

Regrettably, only the debut album and single made any real impression on the charts.  Nonetheless, the music of The Dream Academy has matured, rather than aged - especially when compared to much of the music released by other contemporary and indie acts in the 1980s and early 90s.  

Several non-album tracks, demo recordings and extended versions of LP tracks can be found, scattered across the six UK 12” singles.  Certainly, the 12” mixes of Indian Summer and Love may be considered definitive, over the album versions.   In addition, there are “Easter Eggs” to be found on several of the 12” singles.  These are mostly snippets of other tracks, as often as not played backwards. 

Here now are both sides of all six 12” singles, ripped from the original UK vinyl pressings.  If you don’t already possess the band’s three albums, make it a priority to add them to your collection. 

Most of all, enjoy these stunning maxi-singles, all of  which can be downloaded here

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[i] Founder of Rough Trade Records

[ii] Founder of él Records

A brief discography

In the UK, The Dream Academy released three LPs and six singles.  

• The Dream Academy (1985)
• Remembrance Days (1987)
• A Different Kind Of Weather (1990)

• Life in a Northern Town (1985)
• The Love Parade (1985)
• Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want (1985)
• Indian Summer (1987)
• Love (1990)
• Angel of Mercy (aka Twelve-Eight Angel) (1990) 

 The super-rare US radio CD of Indian Summer

Further LP tracks were released as 45s in the US, some as promotional-only items: -

• The Edge Of Forever (1985) (promo)
• This World (1985) (promo)
• The Lesson Of Love (1987)
• Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime (1987)

The American CD and 12” singles of Love contain further mixes that were unavailable in the UK. 

A non-album single (In The Heart) was released in Japan

• In The Heart/Power To Believe (1988)

A promotional video was prepared for the LP track This World. 

Compilation albums: -

• Somewhere In The Sun (Japan only, 1999)
• The Morning Lasted All Day (2014)

A promotional album mixing interviews with tracks from the debut LP was issued to American radio stations in 1985.

Their music has appeared in two major films: -

• The Edge Of Forever & Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want feature in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. 
• Both vocal and instrumental versions of Power To Believe feature in Planes, Trains & Automobiles. 

The single Life In A Northern Town has appeared on countless various-artist compilation albums, it has been sampled on at least three dance/pop records: -

• Sunchyme by Dario G
• Never Let You Go by Jakaranda
• Walk on By by Picco

Life In A Northern Town has been covered by at least five different acts: -

• Chris Collingswood
• Voice Male
• The Coats
• Rick Springfield
• Sexton Blake

Thanks to Rick Springfield’s 2005 version, the song appears in a lullaby arrangement on the children’s album Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star.

The song Moving On was sampled by: -

• Erica part1 by Dom Kennedy.