HOLLYWOOD actor Val Kilmer set the benchmark for making science cool and as Chris Knight, the brilliant physics prodigy who was also the life of the party in Martha Coolidge’s 1985 sci-fi comedy Real Genius, he represented rebellion and fun, snark and good nature.
So, with this in mind, only a song as effortlessly cool and clever as Coolidge’s star could cap off this wild ride on the silver screen.
And when rock band Tears for Fears performed ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’, it kicked in over the film’s finale and closed credit with moviegoers and everyone else funding it hard to imagine a more fitting ’80s send-off.
Even better, the pairing has endured far beyond the movie itself, with flagship station RTÉ Gold ranking the song No. 16 on its Top 100 ’80s Movie Songs list and Choaspin namingit the best song on the Real Genius soundtrack.
The’ 80s anthem provided the perfect soundtrack to the movie’s rebellious, over-the-top finale.
In the Coolidge cult classic film, young geniuses Chris and Mitch (Gabriel Jarret) learn that their corrupt professor has military weapons plans for their laser research so they take matters into their hands, hatching a revenge scheme that culminates in the thwarting—or popping—of the mad professor’s sinister agenda of world destruction.
Variety mag even wrote: “It’s the movie that Weird Science wanted to be, yet it’s made of equal parts wit and cheese, with one of those big-beat ’80s synth-pop scores and a villain who says things like ‘You’re laborers—you’re supposed to be laboring!'”
Towards the film’s end, Tears for Fears’ upbeat chart-topper brilliantly captured the movie’s triumphant, anti-authority finale with the tune capping off a fascinating 12-track soundtrack.
Interestingly, the soundtrack was never officially released—a fact Coolidge has publicly called to correct on X (formerly Twitter).
Released a few months before the film, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ appeared on Tears for Fears’ 1985 album ‘Songs From the Big Chair’. Curt Smith explained on the band’s website that the song’s concept is quite serious, saying it’s about everybody wanting power, about warfare and the misery it causes.
According to producer Chris Hughes, frontman Roland Orzabal arrived with the song’s simple two-chord foundation after months spent on the band’s ‘Shout’.
“‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ was so simple and went down so quickly, it was effortless, really. In fact, as a piece of recording history, it’s bland as hell,” Hughes asserted in an interview with Mix magazine via Songfacts.
The song became a massive global smash and a defining new wave anthem, not to mention Tears for Fears’ first U.S. No. 1, with “Shout” following it to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 two months later.
ia/xf
