Today we are commemorating the 2nd anniversary of the release of Simple Plan’s latest studio record – Get Your Heart On! This record, more commonly reffered to among fans as “GYHO” was released on June 21st 2011 as a follow-up to the band’s self-titled album (released 2008). The standart edition of this album includes 11 tracks. Various other versions then include bonus tracks such as the French version of Jet Lag (feat. Marie-Mai), the Sean Paul version of Summer Paradise or the bonus song Never Should’ve Let You Go that was recorded during the process of the making of the band’s third album.

With this album the band decided to go “back to their roots” – not only with the music but also with the whole fun side of the band – expressing that on the photoshoot featured in the CD booklet, where the band can be seen immitating the looks of other well-known bands from the past including Wham!, The Ramones, RUN DMC and The Beach Boys. The looks were also used as a marketing strategy to promote the album when Simple Plan appeared in their Plan! (Wham!) outfits and a pink limo at the red carpet of 2011’s MuchMusic Video Awards just a couple days before the album dropped.

The first song released from Get Your Heart On! in full-length was Can’t Keep My Hands Off You (feat. Rivers Cuomo) and despite not being marked as an actual single, a music video for it has been created to support the movie “Prom” that the song was featured in. In the course of a week Simple Plan recorded this music video and also two more videos (for Jet Lag and Astronaut) that have been released a couple months later making them the 1st and 2nd single of GYHO. Summer Paradise then became the 3rd single and also one of Simple Plan’s biggest hits in their career. After the release of the K’Naan version (that appears on the album) in Australia and the positive reaction it has gotten the band proceeded to release it again – this time worldwide. But due to a conflict with K’Naan’s label (because his own new single was about to come out), Simple Plan were forced to find an alternative – another singer/rapper to collaborate on a brand new version of this song. This is how Sean Paul came into the picture making the song even more successful all over the world. The follow-up versions of this song featured the acts of Taka (ONE OK ROCK) and MKTO. The final single from Get Your Heart On! was the final song on the record – entitled This Song Saved My Life, written thanks to thousands of fans’ tweets about how much of an impact has music had on their lives.

Today, on June 21st, we commemorate the first anniversary of Simple Plan’s 4th studio album called “Get Your Heart On!”.

This album was the first one since their debut record, where Simple Plan used strong collaborations with other artists. On the record, the fans were able to find the voices of Alex Gaskarth from All Time Low on the song Freaking Me Out, of K’Naan on Summer Paradise, of Rivers Cuomo from Weezer on Can’t Keep My Hands Off You and of Natasha Bedingfield and Marie-Mai on the two version of Jet Lag.

Yes, different versions of many songs – that one of the main themes of the past year. The first single – Jet Lag – has been heard in tons of different versions, mostly because of Simple Plan trying to get different ladies in different countries to sing on the song – from Sierra Kusterbeck from VersaEmerge to Kelly Cha with her chinese version of Jet Lag.

Next, we were also to hear a couple version of the song Summer Paradise. After the collaboration with K’Naan, the band decided to release it as a single with another collaboration – this time with the rapper Sean Paul – in two versions – in English and in French. Apart from that, there were many other versions of this song available – including “no rap” or various acoustic ones.

Another song that is also worth mentioning is “This Song Saved My Life”, which was practically created “by fans for the fans”. That’s because while writing, Pierre and Chuck replied on the fans’ tweets about how Simple Plan’s music has helped them throughout the years. This song will also most probably become the last single off this record.

Ever since the beginning the whole album has been described as the “return to the roots” of the band – to the era of their first two albums, and when it came to the critical response, the album has been received mostly positively.