Old Enough to Forget

Mr. Mister was huge ... then they weren't. Here in Canada the band's previous album Welcome to the Real World went triple platinum moving over 300,000 units. That's a lot of music per capita and I did my part by buying a record. I remember waiting for the follow up album ... and I don't know how I missed it. I suppose part of the problem was I didn't hear anything on the radio or see a video on Much Music. My sense of object permanence is kind of ... oooh a squirrel. In the fall of 1987 Mr. Mister released Go On ... and while I may have missed the boat, others didn't and the album would still go gold in Canada (50,000) and the band's music would appear in a few soundtracks, from Stand and Deliver, Stakeout , and I am absolutely positive they had a song in the Patrick Dempsey movie Can't Buy Me Love ... I'm certain of it. Don't ask me why I remember that - or why I saw it in the theatre, but not what I had for breakfast. "Stand and Deliver...

Mr. Mister managed to catch lightning in a bottle on Welcome to the Real World . Although they had released a moderately successful album in 1984 that managed to crack the Billboard to 200, most people, myself included had no idea their '85 release wasn't their debut. The album is best remembered for two great singles, "Broken Wings" and "Kyrie" that were pretty much saturating radio at the time. I'd always assumed the album was a monster in terms of sales, and it was. in Canada it sold over 300,000 copies. However in the US market while it did go platinum I'd always assumed it was in the millions ... millions! Not that sales is any indication of anything other than popularity. Still, when I really liked something, I assumed everybody like it too. Now, let me qualify assessment. I know I've said it before, but I loved making mix tapes for the car and I mined the big songs right away, and honestly didn't play the album as often as you'd t...