Falling in love with an adorable kitten we are amused until it soon grows to be an adolescent nuisance. Likewise, there are bands that, in their time decades ago, seemed relevant and were briefly the focus of universal attention. They may have been genuinely talented and creative, but their moment passed and the adoration moved on to another infatuation. I’ll come up with a few examples in a minute, but I want to continue the idea of the living, furry creature with a full lifespan. Long, long after we may have forgotten about the kitten and moved on, the maturing feline continues making a living being a cat.

Artists such as Simple Minds, Juliana Hatfield, Peter Murphy and Gary Numan each had some degree of fame decades ago, the spotlight shifted away, but they have continued to live out a long creative lifespan. With “Don’t you forget about me,” about 30 years ago, Simple Minds got a very catchy hit on the radio. It tied in with “The Breakfast Club,” and persists to this day on the sentimental 80’s oldies stations as a fantastic one-hit wonder. Although they despised that song and would physically wretch when they had to perform it, they rode out the fame for a little while and topped out with the world-wide spectacle of Live Aid. Then poof, they seemingly disappeared. For me they made a huge impression on me early on and they became one of my first “knee jerk” bands that I would follow and keep up with their releases automatically. That’s how I have been aware that they continued to evolve, to release records, and to make a living working hard at what they love. (U2 comes to mind also, but then they have enjoyed mega-stardom for practically their whole career.)

A side note about Simple Minds: They would have made for a really weird pet kitten over their first few records, like some kind of avant-garde lizard-panther laboratory accident. Inexplicably, they became mainstream pop-friendly for a while, then morphed over time through many interesting species combinations, until today where they are simply a solid, classy rock band. To tie back to the lifespan idea, yes, they’re growing older, but it’s a long lifetime and the want to keep working. Rather than make a lateral career move to reality TV, like Flavor Flav and Vanilla Ice, these artists ride out the momentary rush of fame and drive on with a long-term, lifelong track to work hard and enjoy making music. A cat loves leaping and lunging at their sparkly feather toy long, long after their brief time as a kitten.