It’s time to fire up the DVA’s cloning ray!
It’s time to drown out those Monday blues with a little noise pollution that’s actually good for the environment. That’s the day The Nest loads up the D battery draining boombox with another mix tape of awesomeness out of that sonic boom of sonic youth we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive! DJ Scratchy’s ready to pump up the speakers to eleven on a great lost 80’s hit, while the Sponkies take out the earplugs Sparklepony makes them wear when they hang around Aunt Scratchy. This one’s comin’ at you loud and proud…
There’s nothing simple about the 80’s Scottish band Simple Minds…. unless you happen to be from America where to this day they’re still really only remembered as that group that did the Breakfast Club song. And no, I’m not talking about “Right On Track“…
Don’t you forget about this annoying song!
Ugh, I’m not even going to mention that piece of dreck anymore. Simple Minds, who had been completely ignored in the US until that film debuted, had a ton of great songs that we didn’t appreciate enough. Many of those hits came off of their 1985 post-Breakfast (lunch?) album Once Upon A Time… and you may even know a few of them. “Alive and Kicking,” “Sanctify Yourself,” and this one which really fell through the cracks despite having a revolutionary music video in a time in MTV’s history when revolutionary videos became fucking icons!
Don’t adjust your set, folks. The DVA is controlling the horizontal and the vertical…
“All the Things She Said” is one of my favorite Simple Minds songs, and it topped out at a mediocre #28 on our Hot 100. If you hurry, you can hear this at your local Mecca store where it’s become a frequent earworm lately…
But let’s talk about that video…
We’re all ears!
This video was released in late 1985, right in between two of the most celebrated music videos of all time… Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing” and Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.” How it didn’t draw more attention to itself for the multiple layered cloning effect that is featured throughout is a huge mystery to me. It had to take many hours, many takes, and many, many horrific Goodwill costume changes for lead singer Jim Kerr, backing vocalist Robin Clark, guitarist Charlie Burchill, and a flock of our fine feathered friends to pull off this underappreciated masterpiece of mid 80’s special effects.
We ain’t goin’ on that set, or we’ll moidalize da bums!
If you promise to stop humming “(Don’t You) Forget About Me,” I’ll come back next Monday with another lost hit…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
loved the owls… and even without so much computer stuff today, in the 80’s we had the better videos, tha’s for sure! (and the better muzak too!)
Better music! Better videos! Better Hair! Ummm….
…better aquanet, yeah!
I liked the group back then…….hadn’t heard their music in a while though so thanks for the earworm. Simple Minds sounds like our government…..hahaha
Pam
I think you assume too much if you think our government has any minds!
True………………..sad but TRUE!
Umm, love(?) the stripped pants! I always enjoyed Simple Minds, even won a pair of tix from a local radio station for a concert they did in town. Great fun and I had their songs stuck in my head for days thereafter (talk about earworms). But I did learn a valuable lesson…always, always bring some cotton to put in your ears at any indoor concert. Yikes! No wonder no one of a certain age can hear anything. 🤣
What did you say? Speak up, I can’t hear you!
Are you sure it was the music that was too loud, or those awful pants?
Good point!
Sorry. You planted the “Don’t Forget About Me” seed and it has flowered abundantly. Attracting ear worms by the dozens. Gee. Thanks. But I won’t be humming it (where you can hear) and I’ll look forward to next week’s hit. Now where’s Fuzzywig? That dude was supposed to meet me behind the SCT building…
Fuzzywig gets “lost” sometimes. He might have accidentally rendezvoused with Mitzi… he has a hard time telling the both of you apart.
Never heard this, only the Breakfast club song, which I like both song & movie. This video is strange but fun to watch. Love the birds and the pink guitar! 🙂
The little touches they changed in between layers were nice. The pink guitar was much better than some of those awful pants that were being shown off…
I don’t remember this song or video so I’m pretty sure I’ll be humming Don’t Forget About Me all day, until something worse sticks in my head. Ugh. Why is always the annoying songs that hang around haunting your head?
As much as I hate that song, I’d rather have it caught in my head than some of the newer songs that are getting played over and over at Mecca. The “oldies” kinda rotate in and out, but I’m done with this millennial trash about “sleeping on my Mama’s couch” and “we are never ever going home!”
I ended up getting a much more annoying song in my head. It’s a commercial for Puget Sound Energy and the whole thing is whistling and the commercial shows a cartoon of a lady hugging a tree that turns into a refrigerator or something. It’s ridiculous and annoying but I’d rather hear it every day for the next ten years than hear even one of the so-called songs that is supposed to pass for music these days!
I think I even remember the video for that song. Quite a good band (gotta cheer for the “home team”, as it were).
I realized not too long ago that I feature a lot of your home team bands on the DVA. Remember that the next time you throw rotten eggs at DJ Scratchy….