Simple Mind’s 1985 hit song Don’t You (Forget about Me) by Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff is best known for its part in a movie called “The Breakfast Club,” where it was used for the opening and closing credits of the movie.

For an upbeat type of song that gives an interesting feeling of attitude, it also has a punk-like feeling. It is in the genre of new wave:  music that people make for movements, trends, or vogue in order to contribute of the breaking towards traditional concepts, or politics.

Synthpop and dance-rock are also incorporated into the song. Synthpop is music that is played with synthesizers that has light upbeat lyrics, and dance-rock is a genre originally called new music, developed in the early 1980s as a post-disco movement a sort of aftermath. This music is a mix of different genres, has an upbeat tone, but speaks through the tone it has along with its lyrics.

The new wave lyrics are lyrics that help change the song for better circumstances such as giving listeners a way to think newly, and also finding a person’s self-identity. It is proven through the lyrics “Will you call my name?” or “I’ll put us back together at heart.” These quotes prove how the song focuses mostly upon a person finding who they are, while still thinking modern.

New wave music is also a genre of breaking traditional values and expanding them through human artistry for better understanding in all that is general. It is proven when throughout the words “don’t you forget about me,” mean more than what they sound like. Consistently, these words were said consistently to reaffirm, in order to show a piece of life and further explain not to forget about a person.

Synthpop was used to create better sound so it would go along with what the writers say as a whole. They used synthetic sound in order to create a new interesting tone rather easily, when compared to making it naturally. This method isn’t bad, but I would have liked to have seen more realness behind the music, more of a true tone. The sound in the music still leads to a great upbeat tone that truly fits in itself rather bringing itself down.

Dance-rock gives the song a sort of disco feeling, yet at the time a newer type of rock. It is a rock that expands music to a newer evolved form and at the same time stays listenable. During my first time hearing the song Don’t You (Forget about Me), I could already tell that the song was an aftermath yet also evolved form of disco and rock.

It is a song that speaks throughout its entirety of lyrics, and sound so others can hear while also understanding the learning aspects from it. This song may have now been out for more than 20 years, but it is still new and hip when compared to many other pieces of music.

Music that intentionally helps to encompass a story line along with a visual usually tends to be more successful and have more longevity. As a song that has lasted a couple generations, it exhibits that the basic premise of the lyrics are timeless.

Whether discussing personal relationships or the growth and experience of the ’80s generation, synthpop music’s appealing sound is uniquely attributed to music that evolved into the decades that followed.