What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)

With an intricate, dance-floor-ready techno beat, this song got a lot of attention because of its sound, but the lyric also tells a compelling story, with a man desperately trying to get his partner to open up. Group mainstays Paul Robb and Kurt Harland wrote the song, and in Robb's 2016 Songfacts interview, he explained that when they wrote the lyric, they considered it just a collection of emotional impressions, but it turned out to be far more meaningful. "When you look back at it now, it's a clear narrative about the difficulty that people have communicating with each other," he said. "At the time, we weren't writing it with that in mind, but it's so clear when you just read through the lyrics. It's a very simple and very clear-cut story. We didn't really realize what we were writing about. You fall into these grooves - I think it's just the way the human brain works, even when you try to avoid it, you fall into the next groove over. But it's still the same narrative structure, because that's the way the brain works: we like to tell stories."

The "Pure Energy" vocal comes from Leonard Nimoy's character Spock on the TV series Star Trek. In the 1967 Season 1 episode "Errand of Mercy," Spock and Captain Kirk visit the planet Organia, where their citizens have advanced beyond the need for physical bodies. When two of them vanish in front of them, Spock says, "Fascinating. Pure energy. Pure thought. Totally incorporeal. Not life as we know it at all." At the beginning of the song, there's another sample from the series: DeForest Kelley's character Dr. McCoy saying, "It's worked so far, but we're not out yet." Two other songs on the album also use Star Trek samples: "Over the Sea" and "Walking Away." Just one problem: the samples weren't cleared and the record company refused to release the album until they were. The album was slated for release in December 1987, but got stuck in limbo when nobody from Paramount would respond to requests to authorize the Star Trek clips. The breakthrough came when the band's A&R man contacted Nimoy's son Adam and asked for help. Adam Nimoy brought the issue to his father's attention, and the samples cleared. The album was released in June 1988 after a six-month delay. "What's On Your Mind" reached its chart peak on the Hot 100 in October.

Information Society formed in 1982 and had a club hit with "Running" in 1986, earning them a record deal with Tommy Boy, a progressive label that was home to many hip-hop acts, including De La Soul and Afrika Bambaataa. "What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy)" was the first single released from Information Society's debut Tommy Boy album, and it took off, going to #1 on the Dance chart and rising to #3 on the Hot 100 - quite a feat for a techno/freestyle track, and a life-changing event for the band, who were suddenly thrust on tour and getting recognized in public thanks to airplay on MTV. The follow up, "Walking Away," was nearly as successful on the charts, making #9 on the Hot 100, but "What's On Your Mind" proved to be their most durable song, and one that sometimes got them tagged as a one-hit wonder (VH1 included the group on their "Greatest One Hit Wonders of the '80s" countdown). Paul Robb told us that the song gets more royalties than the rest of their catalog put together, but in some circles, Information Society is known for other tracks: In Brazil "Repetition" is their biggest hit, and in the New York club scene, they are best known for "Running."