Eddie Pensier writes:
Those of us who grew up in the 1980s probably have fond memories of this song, and the movie it came from: John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club. The original 1985 recording, by Scottish New-Wave band Simple Minds, probably deserves its place as a permanent earworm for my generation.
It’s not well known that producer Keith Forsey (who co-wrote the song with Steve Schiff) offered the song to Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol, who both passed on it. Idol had a change of heart years later, and covered the song for his greatest hits album. Damned if it isn’t a hundred times better than the Minds’ version.
Victoria Justice is done no favors by her producers in this version, who encase the song in a five-inch thick layer of studio Plexiglass. Still, she’s kind of cute.
The Breakfast Club’s star, Molly Ringwald, has reinvented herself as a chanteuse, apparently. She sings it as a jazzy torch song, not very well, but with an endearingly amateurish earnestness. (The recording was dedicated to the memory of Hughes, who died in 2009.) This particular link contains only an excerpt, but if you are for some reason motivated to buy it, her entire album is on ITunes.
Finally, this wretched track from a CD called “Orchestral Rock” by the previously respectable Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, amply demonstrates why symphony orchestras should never put out records called “Orchestral Rock”. I hope the person who arranged this is suffering from a painful and debilitating disease.
We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
All of those were better than the Commie Minds version (well, maybe not Molly Ringwald’s). I found the orchestral one to be enjoyably bombastic. Beats hearing bloody Nessum Dorma again……
LikeLike
Rock and big orchestra (or maybe rock versus big orchestra). A worthwhile UR topic, maybe?
IMHO the marriage seldom works well. If you wanted to be uncharitable about orchestras you could say how weak-kneed they can sound when asked to shoulder the ambitions of big rock. If you wanted to be uncharitable about rock you could say how orchestration often reveals the lack of many interesting compositional ideas, and the extent to which so many rock *songs* are bailed out by amplification, effects, performance and attitude.
LikeLike
“Rock and big orchestra … A worthwhile UR topic, maybe?” – as a combo, the pickings are very slim. Deep Purple’s two efforts were atrocious. And Metallica’s….oh jesus……
LikeLike
How about Neil Young + the London S.O. on ‘There’s A World’ and ‘A Man Needs A Maid’ on Harvest (1972)? I think it worked well there.
LikeLike
Not good. You know how much of my Tuesday I spent nostalgically watching 80’s behind the music episodes on YouTube? First it was Billy Idol next thing you know I’m watching Hall and Oates. Sigh.
LikeLike
Not good. You know how much of my Tuesday I spent nostalgically watching 80’s behind the music episodes on YouTube? First it was Billy Idol next thing you know I’m watching Hall and Oates. Sigh. You can’t relive those days. It was a great time.
LikeLike
The short / normal version of the Simple Minds song sounds hollow. At the ’80s night here, they play the 12″ single version, which is a lot richer and fuller. More reverb on the guitar, more prominent drums, and either he sang it again with a fuller delivery, or it just sounds that way because the instruments are helping out more.
Listen here.
The Billy Idol one isn’t bad, but he enunciates too clearly and crisply. It makes the delivery sound rehearsed, in what is supposed to be a “straight from the heart” kind of song. There’s that funny late ’90s / early 2000s techo-y dance beat, which doesn’t match with the blues-y harmonica that’s playing the riffs. That pairing sounds designed by committee (“we love the idea of a blues-techno fusion”). You can barely hear the riffs after “Don’t you….” and “forget about me…” Those have to be some of the most recognizable riffs in pop music, and they whitewashed them. And the timbre on the keyboard playing them is flat, while the original one has a shiny texture that tugs at the heart-strings, like this song is supposed to.
He could’ve done a cool version back in the ’80s, in the style of “Catch My Fall.” The musical zeitgeist of 2001 was just too lame to work with.
Orchestral rock… it’s not that it isn’t electric or amped up. It’s more fundamental: they’re bowing the string instead of giving it a good strum with a pic, and percussion always takes a back seat because your response is supposed to be cerebral rather than corporeal. Strumming the guitar strings, slapping the bass, and pounding the drums all make rock music sound forceful, assertive, and confident.
When orchestral music aims in that direction, it sounds more emotive than packing-a-punch. (Unless it’s a “noisy” composer.)
LikeLike
The “Wagner does Simple Minds” version gets back to that link you guys had on how every movie features some Earth-shattering plot, and the tone is always apocalyptic.
“Don’t You Forget About Me” is supposed to be personal, intimate, and informal in tone — not pretentious and bombastic. It should make you feel joyful and delightful, not like you’re running a gauntlet. Orchestral music is better at stimulating fear and anxiety — usually the opposite of what pop music wants to stimulate. They make a terrible combination.
LikeLike
Boy, have you been listening to the wrong music.
LikeLike