MOVIE SOUND TRACKS DON’T ALWAYS TURN GOLD

In the past year, two Los Angeles bands have landed their first national No. 1 hits with movie theme songs. Berlin topped the chart last September with the Oscar-winning “Take My Breath Away” from “Top Gun,” and Los Lobos has been No. 1 the last three weeks with “La Bamba.”

So both groups have it made, right?

Well, maybe.

Several acts have used No. 1 movie hits as springboards to successful pop careers. Among them: Simple Minds, whose “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from “The Breakfast Club” topped the chart in 1985; Survivor, which had the best-selling single of 1982 with “Eye of the Tiger” from “Rocky III,” and Roberta Flack, who had the top hit of 1972 with “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” from “Play Misty for Me.”

But having a No. 1 movie hit is no guarantee of a long career. Just ask Michael Sembello (“Maniac” from “Flashdance”) or John Parr (“Man in Motion” from “St. Elmo’s Fire”). Or, for that matter, Debby Boone, whose 1977 version of “You Light Up My Life” was one of the biggest hits of the modern pop era but who hasn’t made it back to the Top 40 since.

So how are these hometown bands trying to make their movie breaks work for them?

Los Lobos has just released a second single from the “La Bamba” sound track, “Come On, Let’s Go.” In late October, they plan to release “One Time, One Night” from their critically acclaimed album “By the Light of the Moon.”

The East L.A. group is thus likely to have three singles on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 simultaneously--a dramatic breakthrough for a group that for years wasn’t able to get any airplay on pop stations.

“It’s very exciting, yet also kind of surrealistic,” said the group’s manager, Linda Brown. “It hasn’t quite sunk in yet.”

Brown said more than 1,000 radio stations across the nation have played “La Bamba.” They cover a wide range of formats from pop to dance to urban/crossover to country. She added that Los Lobos will be touring throughout the fall. The group is opening East Coast shows for U2, in addition to headlining in some markets.

Brown suggested that Los Lobos will prosper after “La Bamba” runs its course because the band had built a solid foundation before this success. Its two previous albums--though not big sellers--were critically hailed. Though Los Lobos had never had a big hit, most pop fans were at least aware of the group.

Perry Watts-Russell, who manages Berlin, expressed mixed feelings about the love ballad “Take My Breath Away.”

“When that song went to No. 1, it seemed like a very beneficial thing,” he said. “And it was useful in the short term. But it hasn’t been particularly useful in terms of the career of the band. It alienated AOR (album-oriented rock) radio stations, which considered the song too Top 40. The problem has been that Berlin has not been fully accepted at either format.”

Berlin’s lead singer, Terri Nunn, is seeking to sidestep the problem by cutting her first solo album. Said Watts-Russell: “We’re hoping that radio won’t bring to a Terri Nunn solo record the kind of preconceptions they have brought to Berlin records. It should allow her to start with a clean slate.

“We don’t have anything against the song,” he said. “It’s just that the nature of the song was not representative of the identity of the band. The lesson here is that if you’re going to have a big hit, it better be with a song that is truly representative of who you are and how you want to be perceived.”