Songoftheday 7/4/14 - You turn me on you lift me up and like the sweetest cup I'd share with you...

Simple Minds - "Alive And Kicking"
from the album Once Upon A Time (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16

Today's Song of the Day is by the Scottish new wave band Simple Minds, who broke into the mainstream around the world in 1985 courtesy of their theme to the "Brat Pack" movie The Breakfast Club, "Don't You (Forget About Me)". Expectation were high, therefore, for their next studio album, and to expand their sound they recruited Bob Clearmountain (Bryan Adams) and Jimmy Iovine (Tom Petty) to produce Once Upon A Time, their seventh effort. The first single from the project, "Alive And Kicking", showed what the band had learned about successful pop hits on "Don't You", with sweeping singalong choruses, vaguely emotional lyrics, and former Chic singer Robin Clark providing responsive back vocals to Jim Kerr's delivery...

"Alive and Kicking" became Simple Minds' second top-10 single in American in December of 1985, while going a notch higher on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Rock radio chart. The song even crossed over to the dance club play list, peaking at #25. Internationally, in their native Britain the song became their second straight top-10 single at #7, as they topped the chart in Italy and went top-10 in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.

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Here's the band live back in 1985 touring behind the album...