Jimmy Barnes – Hindsight

Australian rock legend Jimmy Barnes is to release a new album, Hindsight.  It’s his 15th solo album, and over the 30 years of his career, both as a solo artist and as a member of the band Cold Chisel, he’s racked up 14 number one albums.  For Hindsight, he hasn’t recorded new material, but instead has taken songs from his career and re-recorded them.  At first that might sound like a straightforward Greatest Hits compilation, but it’s a bit more than that.  He’s brought in some special guests, and the new versions aren’t slavish copies of the originals – instead the guests have been able to make changes that give the song’s a new feel while still keeping fairly true to the original – an example is the song “Stone cold” where the new version features a guitar solo from Joe Bonamassa.

“Hindsight” is a UK/European version of the Australia only release 30:30 Hindsight, which is a double album containing 30 tracks.  I’m guessing the reason for the difference is that Jimmy Barnes is less well know over here so the additional cost of a double album might depress sales. It also means that by cutting it down to the best tracks then it’s a better introduction for people new to listening to Jimmy Barnes.
The album features quite a few special guests – Joe Bonamassa, Neal Schon And Jonathan Cain (Journey), Steven van Zandt, Tina Arena and many more.  Comparing the two versions, it’s clear that most of the colaborations with guests have been kept for this release, with the discarded tracks mainly being the ones without special guests, although the dropping of “Good times” featuring Keith Urban is a surprise given that he’s better known outside Australia than some of the others.

The first thing you notice when you listen to the album for the first time is just how good Jimm Barnes’s voice is, even after a 30 year career it’s still strong and powerful and sounds great.

Another thing that hits you listening to this album is how fresh and modern the songs sound, and that really does prove how good the songs are – songs from 20 or 30 years ago sometimes sound dated when you listen to old albums, but that’s invariably the production or recording technology rather than the fault of the song itself, so here Jimmy Barnes is giving the soongs a fresh lease of life – not the usual “remastered edition” kind of treatment, something more thorough than that, and the results really are special.

One of the best examples of changes is “Stone cold”, which features a new guitar intro from Joe Bonamassa as well as a guitar solo later on, but even more strikingly, it’s been changed from Jimmy Barnes doing all the vocals, to a duet between Jimmy Barnes and Tina Arena.  I love the original version, but this new one really does blow you away – it’s a fantastic re-imagining of the song that keeps the same basic song but adds new elements and gives it a whole new sound.  Strangely the video for the song that was released recently was a different version to the one on the album as it featured Joe Bonamassa but not Tina Arena – it’s still a great version but I prefer the album version.

If you’re a rock fan then this is an album you really need to listen to – it’s simply superb.  I’ve had the album for a few weeks now and rarely a day goes by without me listening to it, it really is that good.

“Hindsight” will be released in the UK on 27th October 2014.

Track Listing:

1. Lay Down Your Guns (Feat. The Living End)
2. Time Will Tell (Feat. The Baby Animals)
3. Ride The Night Away (Feat. Steven Van Zandt)
4. Stand Up (Feat. Mahalia Barnes + The Soul Mates)
5. I’d Die To Be With You Tonight (Feat. Diesel)
6. Stone Cold (Feat. Tina Arena And Joe Bonamassa)
7. Working Class Man (Feat. Jonathan Cain And Ian Moss)
8. Going Down Alone (Feat. Neal Schon And Jonathan Cain)
9. Love And Hate (Feat. Shihad)
10. No Second Prize
11. I’d Rather Be Blind (Feat. Jon Stevens)
12. When Your Love Is Gone
13. The Other Kind
14. Walk On (Feat.David Campbell)
15. I’m Still On Your Side (Feat. Bernard Fanning)