What sounds like a hit to the audience might not sound like a hit to the singer, which is what happened with the 1980s chart-topper that Tiffany never actually wanted to record. The young pop singer didn’t think the song showcased her vocal abilities well enough, nor did she think a song first written in 1967 was “cool” enough to enter the charts two decades later in 1987.
Then, one fateful night, Tiffany’s friends convinced her otherwise without even trying.
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Tiffany Never Wanted To Record This Pop Hit
When Tiffany first entered the music industry, it was clear that her target demographic should be teenagers, namely, because she was one herself. So, Tiffany and her team devised a plan that was unlike anything the music business had seen before: a promotional tour of shopping malls across the country. The tour was highly effective in getting Tiffany’s music to younger crowds, the vast majority of whom spent their time hanging out in malls.
Tiffany’s biggest hit is inarguably her cover of the 1967 Tommy James & the Shondells song, “I Think We’re Alone Now.” But she didn’t necessarily want it to be at the time. As she told The Guardian in 2025, “It was dancey, and I worried that it wasn’t going to show that I could actually sing. I was 14, and I had this vision of me being Stevie Nicks or Janis Joplin.”
Tiffany said that one fateful afternoon, she invited her girlfriends over to do homework. While they were at her house, she put on her cover of “I Think We’re Alone Now,” and “they immediately started dancing around,” Tiffany recalled. “I realized there is something about this song that makes people feel good. Still today, it never lets me down.”
A Reluctant But Resonant Chart-Topper
Tiffany might not have wanted to record the massive 1980s pop hit that propelled her to teen stardom, but the song’s chart performance certainly quelled any lingering doubts she might have had about the song. “I Think We’re Alone Now” spent two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart and three weeks at the top of the U.K. Singles chart. The song even managed to make the top twenty highest-selling singles of the year 1987.
“The song took off when I sang it live,” Tiffany recalled in a different conversation with The Guardian. “At first, I could go and have a pizza [after my mall performances], but soon there were so many people that I could barely even get into the mall. Having a No. 1 hit at 15 was a wild ride. I met Michael Jackson. Girls copied my earrings and my crimped hair. I still have “Children behave,” the first words of “I Think We’re Alone Now,” on my t-shirts. I love the song now and never tire of singing it.”
Tiffany’s change of heart just goes to show that sometimes, no matter how right you think you are as a teenager, hindsight can reveal just how wrong you were. While Tiffany never achieved the same kind of success as “I Think We’re Alone Now,” her close association with the ultra-nostalgic pop of the 1980s has buoyed her ongoing singing career ever since.
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