Category: Soundtrack

Soundtrack of the Week- American Gigolo (1980)

Soundtrack of the Week- American Gigolo (1980)

Giorgio Moroder’s soundtrack for Paul Schrader’s 1980 movie about a highly sought after male escort played amazingly by Richard Gere is perfection.

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Just as the movie portrays high living, sophistication but with a gritty menacing underbelly, so does the music. Tracks Night Drive, Palm Springs Drive and Night Drive (Reprise) all effortlessly convey a decadence which is a perfect way to usher in such a decadent and affluent decade such as the Eighties. But they also convey just how incredibly tough this new era was. There are sometimes movies and pop songs that capture the zeitgeist of the time at which they’re made and this movie and it’s soundtrack encapsulate this to a tee.

But there is also room for more avant-garde fare with The Apartment being experimental but not feeling out of place on the album.

But the best song on the album is also one of the best singles ever released. Blondie recorded Call Me especially for this movie with the version on the soundtrack being longer, more epic in scope and even with an extra verse. Debbie Harry was the perfect choice of singer for a soundtrack that ushers in this exciting new decade. Debbie would also lend her vocals to the soundtrack of another masterpiece the following year, John Waters’ Polyester. Now THAT soundtrack needs to be released!

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Moroder’s score for American Gigolo was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.

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Soundtrack of the Week- The Warriors (1979)- Remastered and Expanded Edition

Soundtrack of the Week- The Warriors (1979)- Remastered and Expanded Edition

I can still remember the first time I watched The Warriors. It was one of my brother’s favourite films and I was captivated from the first frames showing the neon of the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island and the following nocturnal subway scenes. Then we see different gangs from different boroughs travelling to a kind of ‘big gang summit meeting’ if you will, each with their own identities, uniforms and threats of danger. Utterly intoxicating.

The soundtrack is a mix of the actual pop songs that several key scenes in the film hinged upon such as ‘In The City’ and ‘Love is a Fire’ and the dark, twisted psychedelia incidental music composed by Barry De Vorzon that was also a huge part of the film. Tracks such as The Fight and Baseball Furies Chase feature on the original soundtrack tracklisting and illustrated their respective scenes perfectly.

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The original Warriors soundtrack

But luckily for Warriors fans, La La Land Records released a remastered and expanded edition of the soundtrack that features a huge amount of De Vorzon’s music that featured in the original film but wasn’t included on the tracklisting for the original soundtrack. There are also tracks unused in the film that are just as brilliant and released for the first time.

Hence, we finally get the music exactly as it features in the film for the opening scene (this has been unreleased until now), the sinister and disquieting music used for the scene in which the rollerskated Punks and The Warriors confront each other in the Union Square subway station and the music used when The Riffs learn the truth about The Warriors and that they didn’t kill Cyrus.

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The remastered and expanded Warriors soundtrack

This music is absolutely essential to the film and makes this expanded edition just as brilliant as the original release. Bask in the glory of this nightmarish score that perfectly accompanied this tale of a crime-ridden Big Apple that was rotten to the core, full of criminal delinquent youth but more exciting and brilliant because of it.

And to finish, here’s some pictires of The Warriors soundtrack on 8 Track!

 

 

Soundtrack of the Week- Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Soundtrack of the Week- Dawn of the Dead (1978)

A peach of a soundtrack to look at is the Trunk Record’s compilation of some of the De Wolfe library music that was used within George A Romero’s masterpiece Dawn of the Dead. The fact that Romero used muzak that would be played inside a shopping mall within a film set in a shopping mall was both genius and audacious.

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To use music that was intended as background music at best and drag it centre stage and use it within a film that would be placed under the microscope and examined closely by both critics and audiences was quite a gamble. Would the plastic music cheapen the film and dilute it’s power? Would critics and audiences alike ridicule the film because of  the music used within it?

The answer was a resounding NO! Romero’s vision was so precise, well defined and strong that the use of library music added yet another layer of meaning to the film. Hence we get the goofy genius of The Gonk by Herbert Chappell, the otherworldly and futuristic Figment by Park, the strangely introspective and minimalist Desert de Glace by Pierre Arvay and the melancholic Sun High by Simon Park all used to underscore and emphasise key scenes within the film.

Just as the tracks gave Dawn of the Dead more meaning, so the film also gave the tracks a new dimension of meaning. It was the cinematic equivalent of Andy Warhol’s silk screens of Campbell soup cans and their being analysed in art galleries after being taken out of the supermarket. Genius.

I’ve heard songs from Dawn also used in schools programmes, porno movies, episodes of The Sweeney and Prisoner Cell Block H. That’s a testament to the tracks brilliance and versatility.

This collection of these songs hangs together very well indeed and feels like revisiting old friends as Dawn replays in your head as you listen to them. Essential.

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