Various Artists: Ghostbusters Original Sountrack Album

Review # 72
Artist: Various Artists
Title: Ghostbusters Original Soundtrack Album
Format: LP
Label: Arista Records
Year: 1984
Songs: 10






With Halloween fast approaching, I wanted to make sure I did at least one more seasonally themed review. Even if it weren't Halloween time, who doesn't love Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters theme song? It's catchy and fun. It went to #1 on the Billboard charts. Lawsuits from Huey Lewis aside, it's a great little tune and is a big part of what made the movie memorable.

 I put this record on every year at this time, and it brings back all kinds of childhood memories of playing Ghostbusters for hours, sometimes convincing neighbors to let me into their homes to search for ghosts, and on at least one occasion convincing one of them to play me for catching one.  I must have been a cute kid, I guess, to get away with charging my neighbors to play in their houses. I was borderline obsessed with the Ghostbusters from ages 6 to about 9, watching the cartoon show every Saturday and renting the movie countless times. The song "Ghostbusters" brings it all back, as do a few of the other tracks on this soundtrack.

Selecting this record for review, however, has reminded me why I almost never make it all the way through this LP. It's got some pretty bad patches. It starts strong with Ray Parker Jr.'s famous tune, and that's followed by the (I think) underappreciated BusBoys song "Cleanin' Up the Town." It's no "Ghostbusters," but this is a fun tune in a swingin' jazzy style about our heroes that gets your foot tapping and your fingers snapping. This is followed by Allesi's "Savin' the Day," which is super dramatic but fun synth-pop. It's cheesy, and it calls to mind the scene where the boys roll up to Spook Central to save the day, which, alongside the over-the-top dramatic cheese of the song itself makes this a fun one if you're a fan of the film.

But after that, it just goes downhill.  Side one finishes up with "In the Name of Love" by the Thompson Twins, which I just find annoying and can't really remember from the film, and then a boring song by the always faux-mantic Air Supply.  Side two doesn't improve much.  It starts with "Hot Night," performed by Laura Branigan, who sounds like a low-rent Pat Benatar. This is followed by Mick Smiley's "Magic," which is pretty forgettable. Then we get two songs from the score of the film, "Dana's Theme" and "Main Title Theme [Ghostbusters]," the latter of which is not an orchestral version of Parker's song as you might think, but instead is a piece instrumental music that plays repeatedly throughout the film. You might remember this tune, unless I'm mistaken, as "the music that plays while the Ghostbusters have to go up a lot of stairs." These are both pieces of music that work fine in the context of the film, but I'm not sure how well they stand alone. The record finishes with an instrumental version of Parker's #1 hit.

So, yeah.  I've never really thought about why I usually turn this off part way through the first side, but I guess the bottom line is, I really only want to hear the first three songs on this record, unless I'm hearing them in the context of the film, which I still love and watch every couple of years.

Everyone's heard these songs, especially the title track.  But you may not have seen the music video, which is hilarious and includes orignal content featuring our four ghost bustin' heroes.  You can check that out here: http://youtu.be/KvkKX035484

I don't know if I'll get to another post before Halloween. If I do, I'll try to pick another seasonal choice, but if not, have a great Halloween, and don't be afraid of no ghosts.

Total songs listened: 881

Beverly Hills Cop: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack

Review # 46
Artist: Various
Title: Beverly Hills Cop -- Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack
Format: LP
Label: MCA Records
Year: 1984
Songs: 10





I have never seen any of the Beverly Hills Cop movies, and don't feel any compelling need to. I bought this record at a thrift store some years ago for one reason only--as a kid, I loved the Harold Faltermeyer song "Axel F," which you might know as just the theme from Beverly Hills Cop, or you may have seen used in recent computer-animated music video, currently popular on YouTube, "performed" by "Crazy Frog." I can't really make sense of that, and will let you find that yourself if you want to see it because I find it sort of irritating and don't want to link to it. Whatever.

Axel F is a piece of super cheesy dramatic 1980s synth pop that used to come on the radio in the car when I was little, and I'd look out the window and imagine I was on my way to do something really cool and dramatic. Maybe I was on the way to... fight the Joker... or... I don't know, really. It just made me feel bad-ass to listen to this song and the look out the window of the car (especially at night, on long road trips) when I was six years old or so and imagine that there was adventure waiting for me at my destination. As a result, when I saw this record in a 25 cent bin, the I decided to pick it up. Can't say I play it much but the beginning of "Axel F," the last song on this LP, still resonates something deep inside my being that make me feel happy.

So that's why I own this record.  What about the rest of it? Well, if you aren't familiar with this soundtrack, it's mostly some pretty silly 1980s pop music, much of it synthesizer driven. But it's not really the kind I like.  If you pick this record up, which is very easy to do in thrift stores across America, you get such hits as "New Attitude" by Patti LaBelle, "The Heat is On," by Glenn Frey of the Eagles, and "BHC (I Can't Stop)" by Rick James, to name a few of the better known tunes and artists found on this record. This isn't the weird nerdy new-wavey '80s pop that resonates with me. It's more dancey and mainstream. I think it's safe to say that for the most part, the only song I ever play on this record is "Axel F."

That said, upon listening to this record for the blog, I did find myself enjoying the song "Gratitude" by Danny Elfman. Elfman is perhaps best known for writing the theme song for The Simpsons as well as music for Tim Burton's Batman and The Nightmare Before Christmas. In addition to scoring movies though, Elfman was also a member of the new wave band Oingo Boingo, and also produced some solo material that was somewhat in that vein. "Gratitude" is a fun synthy pop song that falls more into the weird, more creative kind of silly 1980s stuff that I enjoy. At moments, the songs reminds me a little bit of certain eras of David Bowie's work, and definitely stands out from the rest of this record as far as I'm concerned.

Coming up next, a return to punk rock records, with one of the greatest punk rock team-up albums ever recorded.

Total songs listened: 584

Louis Armstrong and the All Stars: The Glenn Miller Story **UPDATED**

Review # 17
Artist: Louis Armstrong and the All Stars
Title: The Glenn Miller Story
Format: LP
Label: MCA
Year: 1954 (?)
Songs: 10






This the French release of the soundtrack to the 1954 film The Glenn Miller Story, which starred Jimmy Stewart in the title role and also featured Louis Armstrong playing... Louis Armstrong. I haven't seen the film, and in fact didn't even know it existed until I got this record (which was only a about a week ago), but I'm curious now and probably will try to rent it. I've listed the year for this album as 1954 because that's when the movie came out and I haven't been able to find a release date for the record.

Because this is the soundtrack to a film about Glenn Miller, the songs are, not surprisingly, mostly big band renditions of Glenn Miller classics like "In the Mood" and "Pennsylvania 6-500," the latter of which features a slightly jarring telephone sound effect before each chorus. I like Glenn Miller well enough, but he's not one of my all time favorites in the jazz world. Even though I like it, there's something just a little too tame and friendly in the Glenn Miller sound for me to get deeply invested. The songs on this record are mostly nice versions of songs in Miller's repertoire, but they aren't that different from the actual Glenn Miller recordings of these songs.  Very seldom do Louis Armstrong's famous trumpet stylings really come through, and on only two songs, "Basin Street Blues" and "Otchi-Tchor-Ni-Ya" does his unique vocal appear. To be honest, I'm not totally sure how many of these songs Armstrong actually even appears on, and I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't that many.

I don't mean to suggest that this a bad record.  Far from it.  It's both a good record and sort of a cool piece of jazz history. But if you pick this up hoping for something that sounds more like a Louis Armstrong record than a Glenn Miller record, you may find yourself a bit a disappointed or at least surprised.

Also, since this is the French release of this record, I can't read the liner notes and have no idea what they're saying. They might provide some insights on the what role (if any) Armstrong played in recording the songs he's less obvious on, but I'm not sure.

In short, this is a fun jazz record and has a lot of nice cuts on it, but most of it sounds more like a Glenn Miller record than a Louis Armstrong one.

Here's a fun clip from the movie that features  Louis Armstong playing "Basin Street Blues."

Total songs listened: 220

**Update: July 5, 2011**
Over Independence Day weekend, I watched a bunch of movies, including The Glenn Miller Story. While I don't know how accurate the film was to real life, I definitely have a little more respect for Glenn Miller as an artist. The film shows his struggles in the early years of his jazz career, as a man driven to finding a new sound in jazz. It also makes it clear how unusual his arrangements were in his time. The instrumentation he was using was unheard of in his time.  No one had ever tried five saxophones with a clarinet lead before, at least not successfully. The Miller sound is still not my favorite, but I have a new found appreciation for Miller's jazz innovation after seeing the film.  It's also just a good watch, if you like old movies. Recommended.