"That Was Then, This Is Now" is a song written by Vance Brescia for his band the Mosquitos and recorded as the title track of their 1985 EP.

Clive Davis Clive Jay Davis (born April 4, 1932) is an American record producer, A&R executive, record executive, and lawyer. He has won five Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a non-performer, in 2000. From 1967 to 1 ...

Arista Records Arista Records ( ) is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously a division of Bertelsmann Music G ...

heard it and picked it to be the

Monkees The Monkees were an American pop rock band formed in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. The band consisted of Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork. Spurred by the success of ''The Monkees'' television series, they were one o ...

' comeback single and theme of their ''20th Anniversary Tour'' in 1986.

Background

The Monkees The Monkees were an American pop rock band formed in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. The band consisted of Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones (musician), Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork. Spurred by the success of ''The Monkees (TV series), Th ...

(

Micky Dolenz George Michael Dolenz Jr. ( ; born March 8, 1945) is an American musician and actor. He was the drummer and one of two primary vocalists for the pop rock band the Monkees (1966–1970, and reunions until 2021), and a co-star of the TV series ''T ...

and

Peter Tork Peter Halsten Thorkelson (February 13, 1942 – February 21, 2019), better known by his stage name Peter Tork, was an American musician and actor. He was best known as the bass guitarist and keyboardist of the Monkees and co-star of the NBC ...

) covered the song for

, who released their recording as a single and on the compilation album '' Then & Now... The Best of The Monkees'' in June 1986. The compilation album with three newly recorded songs was released by Arista and went platinum during the tour. “That Was Then, This Is Now” became the band's new single and a video for it was filmed at the Arena at Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey on July 25. The video received heavy airplay on MTV, making the song a Billboard Top 20 hit the summer of 1986.

Reception

The song was a surprise hit, capitalizing on Monkees nostalgia at the time, reaching No. 20 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 (the band's first Top 40 hit since " D.W. Washburn" in 1968), and No. 24 on the

adult contemporary chart The Adult Contemporary chart is published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine and lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary radio stations in the United States. The chart is compiled based on airplay data submitted to ''Billboard'' by stati ...

. It has since been featured on several compilation albums by the band. Despite the highly publicized reunion of three original members of the Monkees and their successful '' 20th Anniversary Tour'' in that year, it was the band's last US Top 20 hit.

References

American synth-pop songs 1986 singles The Monkees songs Arista Records singles 1985 songs {{1980s-pop-song-stub