Music Monday, you turn me on, you lift me up, like the sweetest cup I’d share with you.
How do you follow up the success of your previous single, from a movie that every 80s teen knows and loves?
You release another single and hope for the best.
There’s really no magic to it, friends, that’s what you do. Leap of faith kind of thing.
Simple Minds rode high on the success of their single “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from the movie The Breakfast Club. It was safe to say 1985 was already a good year for them – everyone knows that song, and everyone saw that movie. Some kids could easily relate to the teen angst of the plot. It still holds up really well, and not just from a nostalgic point of view. Those characters are the kind of people teenagers could find in themselves. Nothing about that movie was pretty or glamorized growing up. Brat Pack movies never did. The harsh reality of the plots resonated with people – this was real life.
I first heard “(Don’t You) Forget About Me” in the late 1990s (around 1998) while watching a flashback weekend on MTV. I mean, I may have heard it before that, but I knew it was from this movie called The Breakfast Club, and 15-year-old me really wanted to watch it. My best friend at the time’s older sister had a copy of it in her bedroom, so when her sister wasn’t home one night, we went in there during a sleepover and watched it on her VCR. When I got the CD the Big 80s…The Big Movies for Christmas that, year, I listened to that song alot. It was the only Simple Minds song I knew…until I was watching a 1986 Saturday Night Live episode on NBC All Night and heard today’s song.
In following up the chart-making non-album release of “(Don’t You) Forget About Me” in mid-1985, Simple Minds released Once Upon A Time, their seventh (and most successful) album, on October 21, 1985. A few weeks earlier, the first single from that album, “Alive and Kicking” was released. And proving that lightning can, in fact, strike twice, no one forgot about them. “Alive and Kicking” made its way up the charts, proved that the group had more than a fighting chance to not just be a one-hit wonder.
Don’t believe me? Click play and listen to the song. It’s really moving!
Beautiful, don’t you think?
“Alive and Kicking” reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the year ending 1986.
In the United Kingdom, Simple Minds proved they were more than just “that one song, aside from that other song” (even though they’d been around since 1977 and released six previous albums). Unfortunately, “Alive and Kicking” was their last hit in the United States, and they never quite reached the level of success with future releases. Through various personnel changes, they’re still touring and recording to this day.
So you can say they’re still…alive and kicking?
I thought it was funny!
Oh well.
Have a great Monday, and enjoy the music!
Allison's Written Words