Tales From The Space
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Various Artists - Soundtracks - Song Collections |
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| There was a time when Aerosmith was a great rock band. Then, just a
few years before vocalist Steven Tyler's daughter, Liv Tyler, grew up and
became a movie star, they transformed into one of the premier purveyors
of power ballads--songs, in essence, that are as vapid as the big summer
blow-'em-up movies, like, oh, say, Armageddon. In which Liv Tyler stars.
Convenient, no? The soundtrack, which includes four and a half Aerosmith
tracks ("Animal Crackers" features only Tyler), also has contributions
from ZZ Top ("La Grange"), Bob Seger ("Roll Me Away"), and Our Lady Peace
("Starseed"), all of which fans of the respective bands will own on previously
released albums. There is Shawn Colvin's fine--if ultimately unnecessary
-- cover of World Party's "When the Rainbow Comes," new tracks from Jon
Bon Jovi and Patty Smyth, and even a dusting off of Aerosmith's take on
"Come Together." Judge for yourself: is that really the song you want to
hear just before an asteroid finishes off the Earth?
--Randy Silver
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| Note: To hear a song sample, click on the
link with sound image below.
I Don't Want To Miss A Thing - Aerosmith  |
Various Artists - Soundtracks - Song Collections, The X-Files (Related Recordings)
| Audio CD (June 2, 1998); Number of Discs: 1
According to the liner notes, 20 million people gather 'round the tube to watch The X-Files each week, so it's not a stretch to believe that the movie will be huge beyond belief. With that kind of hype, the producers were under a lot of pressure to put together an incredible soundtrack to back it up. At first glance, the disc looks aptly huge, featuring artists like Foo Fighters, The Cure, Bjork, and Sting. How does it stand up? Surprisingly, the smaller groups are the ones providing the best music within. Filter's reworking of Three Dog Night's "One" kicks the disc into high gear but the excitement plummets from there. The Foo Fighter's new track, "Walking After You," is a softly-sung mediocre pop song; Sting should be ashamed to be regurgitating yet another number ("Invisible Sun" with World Beat artist Aswad). It's also disappointing to see the inclusion of already-released cuts, like Bjork's "Hunter" and a forcibly altered version of Sarah Mclachlan's "Black." --Denise Sheppard |
Various Artists - Soundtracks - 1998, David Arnold, Godzilla (Related Recordings)
| Audio CD (May 19, 1998); Number of Discs: 1
Godzilla's return to the big screen mixes old and new; this monster of a flick infuses '90s special effects into the classic tale of a lizard gone awry. In effect, the movie's soundtrack embraces a similar resurrection: established artists either breathing new life into well-worn tunes or showcasing exclusive tracks and new lineups. And, like the movie, the soundtrack only succeeds on certain levels. The Wallflowers' recording of David Bowie's "Heroes" (the album's single) is hardly groundbreaking, and the predictable Puffdaddy treatment to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" drags on. The Foo Fighters, here in their first recording to feature new guitarist Franz Stahl, take a mellow pop tromp. Ben Folds Five's "Air" and Green Day's "Brain Stew," the latter remixed especially for Godzilla, are the album highlights. As the saying goes, sometimes bigger isn't better. --Jason Verlinde |
| Audio CD (April 28, 1998); Number of Discs: 1
Composer John Williams, fresh from the Wagnerian success of Star Wars, was allowed the unusual luxury of composing much of the Close Encounters score before principal photography began. Thus Spielberg was able (as had Sergio Leone with Morricone's Once Upon a Time in the West) to stage much of his action to the Williams music playing on the set in a rare way. The entire special-effects finale was in fact edited to match the composer's rhythms. For his part, Williams composed arguably his most ambitious and accomplished score. Balancing his more obvious sentimental skills with refreshingly bracing doses of atonality (and just a nod to the modern Ligetti pieces Stanley Kubrick had wedded so well to 2001: A Space Odyssey). Williams produced a mature work that holds up remarkably well 20 years on; a true classic. --Jerry McCulley |
[SOUNDTRACK] Bruce Broughton, Various Artists - Soundtracks - 1998,
Lost In Space (Related Recordings)
| Audio CD (March 31, 1998)
Number of Discs: 1 Entertainment Weekly
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Various Artists - Soundtracks - 1997, Men In Black (Related Recordings)
| Audio CD (July 1, 1997); Number of Discs: 1
Former Coen brothers cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld has carved out a nice, if unlikely, niche as one of the '90s most consistently succesful directors (The Addams Family, Get Shorty), and the megahit alien spoof Men in Black only enhanced that reputation. The film's quirky MIB orchestral score by Danny Elfman is represented here by just two cuts; the feel-good hip-hop grooves of star Will Smith, Snoop Doggy Dogg, A Tribe Called Qwest, and others that take center stage instead. Still, a more convincing argument for "positive rap" would be hard to imagine. --Jerry McCulley |
(Slimline Package) [SOUNDTRACK] Star Wars (Related Recordings),
John Williams, London Symphony Orchestra, The Star Wars Trilogy (1997 Release)
| Audio CD (February 18, 1997) ; Number of Discs: 2
Rolling Stone (3/6/97) ...Williams not only enhanced the film but embodied its spirit. The music for STAR WARS moved beyond the film....what Williams does best is make the big melody, and with STAR WARS, an entire generation learned it... |
John Williams, Superman (Related Recordings)
| Audio CD (March 14, 1989)
Number of Discs: 1 John Williams is often associated with some of the biggest blockbusters of all time. From the now familliar main theme to the brilliantly orchestrated "Superfeats", the album perfectly presents and captures the spirit of the film. |
[SOUNDTRACK] - John Williams
| Audio CD (September 24, 1996); Number of Discs: 1
This is a wonderful soundtrack for fans of the movie, and especially fans of John Williams. Williams' score, exquisitely shaded and warmly effusive, helps give the tale an extra element of verisimilitude, with a cohesive combination of musical themes all designed to enhance the screen action. When the film was initially released, Williams went to the studio, and rerecorded several of the themes for an album which has been in the MCA catalogue ever since, first as an LP and, since the late 1980s, as a CD. |
[SOUNDTRACK] Various Artists - Soundtracks - Film Scores
| Audio CD (October 29, 1996); Number of Discs: 1
This commemorative reissue of music from 2001: A Space Odyssey combines the Also sprach Zarathustra theme, various Johann and Richard Strauss segments, and a ballet suite by Aram Khachaturian--all of which prove how much Stanley Kubrick's film attempts to avoid the soundtrack clichés of most science-fiction movies. Instead of the expected sci-fi effects, there is a more ironic application of music that would be otherwise incongruous to the celestial settings. Here, "The Blue Danube" complements scenes involving weightlessness and descending spacecraft, while Gyorgy Ligeti's creepy "monolith" music connotes Armageddon more than interplanetary exploration. The tracks play as they had appeared on the original soundtrack release back in the '60s, but there is also previously unreleased supplemental material and a dialog montage entitled "HAL 9000." --Joseph Lanza
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| After a decade of nascent cult fanaticism, Star Trek was finally reborn
in 1979, given new life by an epic-sized feature-film production that all
but squashed the quaint humanity that had been one of the original television
series' most compelling elements (the producers got it right on Wrath of
Khan and seldom looked back). Jerry Goldsmith's score, alternating robust
heroics with alien mystique, is arguably the most memorable element of
Star Trek: The Motion Picture; indeed, its main theme has heralded the
voyages of the Enterprise in TV and film adventures ever since. This slipcased
new edition resequences Goldsmith's music and supplements it with 25 minutes
of previously unreleased, typically masterful cues. The set's "bonus" disc,
Inside Star Trek with Gene Roddenberry, appeals to more polarized audiences:
veteran Trekkers and shameless lovers of pop-culture kitsch. This 1976
artifact (previously unreleased on CD) was one of the first "official"
efforts to address the show's burgeoning postcancellation popularity and
features Trek creator Roddenberry ruminating earnestly about the show's
origins and meanings with the likes of William Shatner and DeForest Kelly
(who gives an eerily prescient lecture on the foibles of modern health
care). Also features new narration by Nichelle "Uhuru" Nichols. Bonus points:
Shatner doesn't sing!
--Jerry McCulley
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