The Dream Academy were an English alternative pop band consisting of lead vocalist and guitarist and primary songwriter Nick Laird-Clowes, woodwinds player and pianist Kate St John, and keyboardist Gilbert Gabriel. The band are most noted for their 1985 hit record, "Life in a Northern Town".

History

Laird-Clowes and Gabriel met each other in the late 1970s whilst the former was in a band called The Act. Their idea was to create a songscape different from the power pop groups popular at the time in the UK, by mixing instruments and sounds that had been rarely done prominently before, such as strings, woodwinds, percussion (timpani) and synthesizers. At first, Laird-Clowes and Gabriel called themselves the Politics of Paradise. The single was dedicated to the English singer-songwriter Nick Drake. It was their only major chart success. The band's follow-up single, "The Love Parade" (1985), charted in the U.K. and the United States.

Also in 1985, The Dream Academy covered the Smiths' "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want". Their version of the song peaked at number 83 on the UK Singles Chart. The Dream Academy's instrumental version of this cover was used in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off in 1986.

Band members

  • Gilbert Gabriel – keyboards, synthesizers, vocals
  • Nick Laird-Clowes – lead vocals, guitars, harmonica
  • Kate St John – saxophone, oboe, cor anglais, accordion, piano, backing vocals

Discography

Studio albums

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|-

! rowspan="2"| Year

! rowspan="2"| Album details

! colspan="2"| Peak chart<br>positions

|- style="font-size:smaller;"

! style="width:40px;"| UK<br>

! style="width:40px;"| US<br>

|-

| 1985

| style="text-align:left;"| The Dream Academy

  • Release date: 16 September 1985
  • Label: Warner Bros. Records

| 58

| 20

|-

| 1987

| style="text-align:left;"| Remembrance Days

  • Release date: 26 October 1987
  • Label: Reprise Records

| —

| 181

|-

| 1990

| style="text-align:left;"| A Different Kind of Weather

  • Release date: 15 June 1990
  • Label: Reprise Records

| —

| —

|-

| colspan="10" style="font-size:8pt"| "—" denotes releases that did not chart

|}

Compilation albums

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|-

! Year

! Album details

|-

| 2000

| style="text-align:left;"| Best of the Dream Academy

  • Release date: 28 March 2000
  • Label: WEA International

|-

| 2014

| style="text-align:left;"| The Morning Lasted All Day: A Retrospective

  • Release date: 29 July 2014
  • Label: Real Gone Music

|-

| 2024

| style="text-align:left;"| Religion, Revolution & Railways: The Complete Recordings

  • Release date: 23 February 2024
  • Label: Cherry Red Records

|}

Singles

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|-

! rowspan="2"| Year

! rowspan="2"| Single

! colspan="10"| Peak chart positions

! rowspan="2"| Album

|- style="font-size:smaller;"

! style="width:30px;"| UK<br/>

! style="width:30px;"| BEL<br/>

! style="width:30px;"| CAN<br/><br/>

! style="width:30px;"| CAN<br/>AC<br/>

! style="width:30px;"| IRE<br>

! style="width:30px;"| NLD<br/>

! style="width:30px;"| US<br>

! style="width:30px;"| US AC<br>

! style="width:30px;"| US<br>Main<br>

|-

| rowspan="3"| 1985

| style="text-align:left;"| "Life in a Northern Town"

| 15

| 4

| —

| 14

| 7

| 9

| —

| 7

| 2

| 7

| style="text-align:left;" rowspan="4"| The Dream Academy

|-

| style="text-align:left;"| "The Edge of Forever"

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| 37

|-

| style="text-align:left;"| "This World"

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

|-

| rowspan="3"| 1986

| style="text-align:left;"| "The Love Parade"

| 68

| 76

| 30

| 41

| —

| —

| —

| 36

| 13

| —

|-

| style="text-align:left;"| "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want"

| 83

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| style="text-align:left;"| Ferris Bueller's Day Off <small>(soundtrack)</small>

|-

| style="text-align:left;"| "Indian Summer"

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| style="text-align:left;" rowspan="3"| Remembrance Days

|-

| rowspan="3"| 1987

| style="text-align:left;"| "The Lesson of Love"

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

|-

| style="text-align:left;"| "Power to Believe"

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

|-

| style="text-align:left;"| "In the Heart"

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| style="text-align:left;"| Non-album single

|-

| 1990

| style="text-align:left;"| "Love"

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| style="text-align:left;" rowspan="2"| A Different Kind of Weather

|-

| 1991

| style="text-align:left;"| "Angel of Mercy"

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

|-

| rowspan="1"| 2014

| style="text-align:left;"| "Sunrising"

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| —

| style="text-align:left;"| The Morning Lasted All Day

|-

| colspan="13" style="font-size:8pt"| "—" denotes releases that did not chart

|}

;Notes

See also

  • List of folk rock artists
  • List of performers on Top of the Pops

References

  • VH1 artist page