Modern English - "I Melt With You" vs. Simple Minds - "Don't You (Forget About Me)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQr3SMvAUyA

Second one by far. Great drum part. First one has been reduced to a jingle aftershock.

Ironically, that Modern English album probably deserves rediscovery more than anything by Simple Minds these days.

i think i've been more desensitized to the harms of "Don't You" by years of musical shorthand for 'John Hughes movies' than i have by any usage of "Melt With You," which still feels like more of a song than a signifier to me.

harms = charms

Bryan Ferry was OTM when he rejected "Don't You (Forget About Me)," a nothing song and performance ("If You Leave" is marginally better).

'If You Leave' is miles better, especially considering OMD had to write that song at the 11th hour (they had three days to do it because they had a tour coming up). Hughes changed the ending to Pretty In Pink at the last moment, so OMD had to throw away the song that they'd originally written for it ('Goddess Of Love', which eventually surfaced on The Pacific Age) and they had to start afresh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcnYFp_CyG4

If You Leave is so great. Can't understand a hint of hate for "Forget." "I Melt With You" was used in a fucking Burger King ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2-8W8B7YCQ

I Melt With You.

I love it in a way I can't even begin to explain.

What the hell is that Durst thing? lol.

Other than amazing, I mean.

when m@ura was still at the VV I wrote a piece about badly sung and written "If You Leave" is ("seven years spent under the bridge like time standing still" whaaa?).

Can I touch you once or twice...there?

OMD made diphthong abuse sound like a valid artistic choice on "If You Leave"
Simple Minds encapsulated an entire genre of film in one song with "Don't You (Forget About Me)"

Both of these are immaculate pop songs IMO

I realized I loved "I Melt With You" despite its ubiquity because it sounds like a sonic forebear of "Just Like Heaven."

Simple Minds encapsulated an entire genre of film in one song with "Don't You (Forget About Me)"

thanks! Now I know why I hate Hughesfilms.

Should I go see OMD in July? Help me decide pls.

I am hovering on the Ticketmaster website right now.

when m@ura was still at the VV I wrote a piece about badly sung and written "If You Leave" is ("seven years spent under the bridge like time standing still" whaaa?).

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:14 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fwiw, McCluskey is on record as saying he thinks the lyrics are terrible. Likewise with 'Hold You' from Crush.

Friend tells me OMD were great on the last tour and asburdly, unexpectedly loud.

And he's not even a big OMD fan - he went for work.

OMD was great last year, as I;ve said I think. Well worth it.

btw I love OMD but "If You Leave Me" is their "Heartbreak Beat."

The lyrics to both of these songs, and "If You Leave," are shit. Yet all three songs endure and are pretty much universally loved (at least in the US). And they were all "hits," to a degree. Thus: were the lyrics shit, or just right?

See also: everything by Duran Duran.

If You Leave >>>>>> Heartbreak Beat.

I hadn't heard "New Gold Dream" or the early singles when SM broke with "Don't You." To me it defines arena rock played to empty seats. Nothing in Kerr's vocal or the arrangement grabs me – and it's written by Keith Forsey! The guy wrote lots of good songs!

I liked both of these songs but Modern English by a nose. Both massively overplayed, though.

I think my favorite SMs song is still 'Up on the catwalk'.

IIRC OMD played 'If You Leave' on their American dates on the last tour, but conveniently left it out of the set when they played the UK. 'Secret' suffered a similar fate. I don't think they're actually that keen on the song, but play it to keep the American audiences happy. That and the song only made it to number #48 in the UK, in stark contrast to its Top 5 position in the US. If they left 'Electricity', 'Enola Gay' or 'Joan Of Arc (Maid Of Orleans)' out of a UK setlist, plenty of people would be pissed off - hardly anyone bats an eyelid when they don't play 'If You Leave'.

They totally played it, and Andy introduced it along the lines "yes, you've all heard this a lot, but it was a hit and made us a shit ton of money."

Ticket bought. :)

Also, whatever, I love If you Leave and Heartbreak Beat.

I need to place "So In Love" in its own iPod playlist so I can hear it over and over.

Not only have I never heard "I Melt With You" I'm not sure I've ever heard of it

Not possible, don't believe you.

Why, it wasn't that big a hit

Tho I might have heard it and not known what it was

pretty sure you have

It's an American thing, right? Not the song but the fact that everyone apparently knows it.

I'll Melt With You a million times over cod U2 bombast

it might be one of those "I Ran" type scenarios wherein it wasn't a big hit in England.

It really wasn't a hit here, just a minor 4AD thing. My (American) wife was amazed that I'd never heard of it when we met. The original post says "#18 in the UK" but that was the indie chart, not yr actual hit parade. That's Wolfgang Press level.

I once saw ME's bass player guesting for Moose. FACT.

Yeah, RS had never heard of it until I played it for him.

"I Melt with You" was a cool obscurity for yrs and yrs before tv got hold of it.
"Don't You....." was a ubiquitous turd from the moment it appeared.

xp I'd never knowingly heard it until early ILX. Since then I've heard snippets of it on (American) TV shows/movies but it's not very well-known here in the UK. I heard it in a restaurant last week, the only time I remember hearing it out and about.

Wikipedia says it was #78 on the Billboard Top 100, which doesn't sound like that big a hit over there either, but I guess soundtrack/MTV ubiquity beats chart placings.

Don't You Forget About Me still sounds more like a "song" to me than I'll Melt With You, which sounds more trite somehow, although both songs have been overplayed. It's interesting to think of an alternate universe, I guess the late 80s, where I'll Melt with You wasn't ubiquitous. If You Leave is just in a much higher class altogether than either of the songs in this poll.

I have always loathed 'If You Leave' and there's not much I can do now to gainsay my teenage aversion to the song.

both great pop songs i love from my youth but gotta go with I Melt With You coz remember rush used to get in 8th(?) grade dances when it came on

Don't You Forget was more, ...adult, guess HS as opposed to 8th so more distant in a way

I generally reach for the dial when "melt with you" comes on. not necessarily with the other (or OMD)

they're both pretty dramatic, i suppose, but "don't you (forget about me)" seems to consist of nothing but straining, swooning bombast. it's like being sat upon by this mountain of starry-eyed devotion. simple minds' carefully manicured intensity always kept me at arm's length, where "i'll stop the world" seems far more touching and genuine in its relative restraint. there's something appealingly fragile about that tinny synth line, the unremarkable vocals lost in dub haze (during the quiet bits, anyway), and especially that little hum-break towards the end. it communicates longing, where the simple minds song insists on eulogizing it in capital letters.

I find "Melt" far superior lyrically, and there's surprising bits in there too like the point where everything stops and he's just humming.

it occurs to me that i've only heard one Modern English song and it's a perfect pop song! why haven't i heard more? maybe they are all that good

(iirc they aren't)

Modern English's debut is all dark, angular and moody well worth checking out. I like the next couple of poppier ones as well but ymmv.

hope I never hear either of these again but "I Melt With You" is a much better song imo

just for that I am dragging you to karaoke and singing "Don't You (Forget About Me)" five times

"Melt" is the first song I ever played at my first drum recital. But I've always absolutely loved the drum part to "Forget."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IisaaEr1caA

just for that I am dragging you to karaoke and singing "Don't You (Forget About Me)" five times

I will fart genuinely devastating harmonies all night long

I think the OMD is the only one I'd favor for karaoke.

OMD is sep thread but I think Dan is right that no other Modern English songs are that good, would be happy to be proved wrong though

Wikipedia says it was #78 on the Billboard Top 100, which doesn't sound like that big a hit over there either, but I guess soundtrack/MTV ubiquity beats chart placings.

There was also this embarassing 1990 rerelease, with a Madchester-ish video and needless production updates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghiNaH6MEpM

That one got to #76. But yeah, for a song that everybody knows, it was never an actual big hit.

After the snow is a great album

Farting through Simple Minds vs the diarrhea that is the song

Josh yourdrum video reminded me that a band I was in at college did that song, too. I forgot I ever played that drum part. (Not near as well as you, tho.)

That's not me!!!!

for some reason the modern english guy's voice always reminds me of ringo's, which makes it extra-funny to me that he sings 'and it's getting better all the time.'

'don't you' is such a slog to actually listen to; it works better in 15-second excerpts.

Big fan of the first half a dozen Simple Minds albums, but Don't You Forget About Me is a total abomination and sadly from that point forward they were never the same again.

Never heard Melt With You before, Modern English are one of those British bands like After The Fire or the Fixx who had shitty new wavey hits in the US but never really had any profile at all in the UK.

I think Dan is right that no other Modern English songs are that good, would be happy to be proved wrong though

Gathering Dust is pretty awesome, it has a laser battle in it like Insight or Space Age Love Song.

Ugh, that re-recording linked above is awful. That could be another thread, "Re-recordings of classic songs, S/D". I'm guessing there's almost no search, all destroy.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Nice turn out and the results are about what I expected, well done ILM!

You've seen the difference, but it's getting Twitter all the time.

battle of the bands http://t.co/nEa7Sa3h8N

— Modern English (@M0DERNENGLISH) April 13, 2013

that "1" and "2" are bumming me out

Innocuous things that make you irrationally embarrassed

Hey, nice! I forgot I did this poll.

These songs both kick major ass

I love early/weird Modern English and the first few poppy albums, even terribly overproduced "Stop Start", but "Pillow Lips" was dire and I don't think I've heard anything since. They just put out an album this year!