30 years ago, in 1985, one of the biggest groups was the Scottish band Simple Minds, who scored a #1 hit that year with iconic "Don't You (Forget About Me)" and a #3 with "Alive & Kicking." The band's US popularity then simply disappeared. Simple Minds formed in 1978 from the remnants of a group called Johnny & the Self Abusers and started scoring big hits in the UK in 1982. Their US breakthrough came the next year, and their next 2 albums both charted in the 60s. However, the band did not have a hit single until they were forced to record a song against their will. "Don't You (Forget About Me)" was slated to be the theme for a teen film called The Breakfast Club, but no one wanted to record it. Bryan Ferry was interested, but had to decline when his father died. The Eurythmics also refused and Billy Idol, the current production client of the song's co-writer Keith Forsey, wasn't interested either. (Idol would later record it for his 2001 Greatest Hits compilation.) With a deadline approaching, A&M, the label releasing Club's soundtrack, forced their act Simple Minds to record the song. The band retaliated in the press and told one interviewer that the single made them vomit. However, both film and song resonated with teens and "Don't You" to #1 for one week in mid-May, synching perfectly with the timing of youth graduation rituals. The band's followup album Once Upon A Time was released later that year, and its first single "Alive & Kicking," a beautiful song with a lovely keyboard break that Coldplay should envy, hit the charts 30 years ago this week. Once would make #10 and sell 500,000 copies, spinning off two more Top 40 singles in 1986: "Sanctify Yourself" and "All the Things She Said." 1987 saw the release of a live album Live In the City of Light, but their US fan base had moved on. The album only made #96, and three further albums charted similarly. The band would score one more Top 40 hit in 1991 with "See the Lights" and would even reunite with Forsey for 1995's album Good News From The Next World, which spun off the #52-charting "She's a River." They haven't made the US singles chart since then.
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Walburgh's BlogMostly retro, mainly music, but generally whatever's on my mind. Archives
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