And one last foray into the Prince catalogue on The Second Disc with what is arguably one of the dopiest entries in his catalogue. To some, it seems like a total work for hire, a hatchet job, a cash-in - and while that may be the case, it's kind of a fun listen. That's right: Prince's album devoted to the 1989 film Batman. The story goes that star Jack Nicholson was the one who suggested Prince to director Tim Burton. After editing two scenes to a temp track of Prince tunes ("1999" for the
Soundtrack Reissue Round-Up: Beyond Thunderdome and Another Brian May
It might be premature to write about the film score news of the day - especially since the La-La Land label will be announcing some titles later today - but a few labels have announced some worthwhile titles to kick off your Tuesday morning. Although it was announced late last month, the Tadlow Music label is now shipping copies of the complete score to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, composed and conducted by Maurice Jarre (an Oscar winner for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago). This deluxe
It Might Be (The Soundtrack for) You
The Film Score Monthly label has prepped another two titles for release: two very different scores from two different composers, but winners both. First up is Jerry Goldsmith's in-demand score for the Sean Connery space Western Outland (1981). Goldsmith created a score that resembled his suspenseful approach to Alien from two years before, and it was augmented by some last-minute additions by Michael Boddicker (Buckaroo Banzai, Flashdance and session work for Michael Jackson) and Morton Stevens
Friday Feature: Prince on Film
The Second Disc reader Robert Altman was predicting the future when he suggested a week devoted to Prince a few days ago. Prince - one of the most polarizing and intriguing figures to ever saunter onto the pop music scene - deserves reams (or gigabytes, in this case) written about his music and its impact, and The Second Disc promises to deliver in that regard. From this Friday to next Friday - going right through Prince's 52nd birthday on Monday - TSD will present a few features on Prince's
Boldly Going Back
Man, it's been a good week for Star Trek music enthusiasts. First Film Score Monthly announces a brand-new deluxe reissue of James Horner's score to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock last week. And now, Varese Sarabande has jumped ahead on the Trek timeline to give fans another new deluxe set: starting June 14, the label will ship Star Trek: The Deluxe Edition, featuring the complete score to last year's fantastic reboot of the sci-fi series. As if the movie wasn't great enough on its own
Friday Feature: A Discful of "Dollars"
Blame the continuing heat in the Northeast. Blame the recent release of video game Red Dead Redemption. But it's just a good time for some great music from the "spaghetti Westerns," that subgenre of film where the Italian film community emulated and built upon the traditions of the American Western picture. Ask any film scholar and they'll likely tell you that few directors contributed more for the genre than Sergio Leone - and futhermore, that his best works had Ennio Morricone providing a
Soundtrack News Round-Up: Spock, Mancini and Spartacus
Well, here's a nice surprise. Following their masterfully-done expansion of James Horner's score to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan last year, Film Score Monthly presents a double-disc reissue of Horner's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. The unlimited set includes the complete score on one disc and the original LP presentation on the other. Intrada's announced some new titles as well. Les Baxter's score to The Beast Within and Henry Mancini's jazzy soundtrack to 99 and 44/100% Dead!, both
Reissue Theory: Galactic Novelties
The Star Wars saga continues at The Second Disc with a trove of often-ridiculous but always intriguing musical curios devoted to the films. It's as much a story of disco and a rock legend from New Jersey as it is about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. And it's yours to read after the jump.
Friday Feature: The Star Wars Trilogy
It was three decades ago today that The Empire Strikes Back was released. Much has been written about what the movie did for the Star Wars trilogy as a cultural force (no pun intended), for sequels in general and so on. But let's not kid ourselves here: when Empire first came out, it was not seen as the masterpiece it is now. The New York Times gave this film - easily the most watchable of the three Star Wars movies - a largely negative write-up. But whatever the merit of such reviews nowadays,
Friday Feature: "Psycho"
It is one of the greatest motion picture scores of all time. A suspense classic that immortalized its composer and director for all time. Arguably the most influential in its style. And, half a century later, has never been properly released on any format, ever. Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film, was a stunner from the get-go - not only unlike any film at the time, but unlike any in The Master of Suspense's lengthy career. The film starts out simply: a conflicted young woman steals a hefty
A "Four Score" from Intrada
Get ready to run up a staircase with excitement: Intrada has announced the first-ever score release of Vince DiCola's Rocky IV. The fourth, perhaps most over-the-top sequel in the long-running franchise pitted Sylvester Stallone's heavyweight champ against a feared opponent from the Soviet Union. Like its predecessor, Rocky IV was buoyed by a handful of pop hits, including two Top 5 smashes for Survivor ("Burning Heart") and James Brown (the vaguely left-field "Living in America"). Often
Friday Feature: "Dirty Dancing"
Dirty Dancing is one of those movies that, on paper, should be a massive dud. It's a painfully by-the-numbers tale - rich girl becomes emotionally, culturally and sexually liberated by a dashing stranger and the art of (you guessed it) dirty dancing - but it is one of those movies that will not disappear from the public eye. And frankly, it's not hard to see why. Yes, as a story, Dirty Dancing is nothing special. But the production is something to behold. It immortalized its two young leads,
Recapturing the Magic
It was during a recent, animated conversation about back catalogue affairs that a stunning realization was made. Of all the major companies dealing in music and pop culture, there is one that has a surprisingly subdued place in the world of reissues. Were this company to change their mind about catalogue affairs and start utilizing their vast discography for more box sets and other special titles, it might be a step in revitalizing the whole reissue practice in general. I'm talking, of course,
Review: "Batman - The Movie: Original Motion Picture Score"
It's somewhat ironic that a man so closely associated with the lush, timeless music of Frank Sinatra would find such great fame (or notoriety?) as a composer scoring one of the most over-the-top television series ever. Yet such was the case of Nelson Riddle, who as arranger and conductor was a chief sonic architect of Sinatra's unprecedented run of Capitol concept albums and beyond. His television credits included such groundbreaking programs as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Naked City and Route
Friday Feature: "Commando"
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teSmRfAtDOU] As a forgiving film fan, I was appalled by the recent news that 20th Century Fox was planning on remaking Commando, the 1985 action flick that became Arnold Schwarzenegger's first star vehicle after The Terminator the previous year. Hollywood's fascination with remakes is too well-known, but surely someone could have drawn a line with Commando. The film has Schwarzenegger as - what else? - a one-man wrecking crew named John Matrix determined
Soundtrack Miracles and More
A heads-up for two brand-new releases from indie soundtrack label Intrada. This week's batch is quite eclectic: first up is Laurence Rosenthal's score to the classic 1962 film version of The Miracle Worker, available for the first time on CD. This disc is sourced from Rosenthal's own first-generation mono 1/4" tapes and produced with full support from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the film's distributor. This is a limited one at just 1,000 copies, so act fast. Intrada's other release turns to the small
Friday Feature: "Licence to Kill"
Recent coverage of soundtracks on The Second Disc has been warmly received. To this end, we have added a the Friday Feature. Every Friday, you'll find some sort of article devoted to a soundtrack or film composer of merit. We hope you enjoy these trips through Hollywood's musical landscape! Our first Friday Feature deals with one of the oddest of the James Bond films. No, not Never Say Never Again (that's not really a Bond film, anyway). Licence to Kill was the second and final feature with
La La Land Blows Up White House, Catches a Wave
Wow! Commenter ~Rupe was some sort of a prophet today when he discussed the need for soundtrack labels to repress certain out-of-print soundtracks. The second of La La Land Record's soundtrack releases today (after David Arnold's complete score to the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day) fulfills that need in spades: the label is releasing a brand-new pressing of John Williams' score to the 1972 disaster classic The Poseidon Adventure. Williams gained early mainstream recognition as the musician
Release Round-Up: Lightfoot, Queen, ID4 and More
Amazon has posted pre-order links for new remasters for folk legend (and non-dead person) Gordon Lightfoot. Wounded Bird will distribute these new releases of the LPs he recorded for Warner/Reprise, from 1970's Sit Down Young Stranger to 1998's A Painter Passing Through (pre-order links are missing East of Midnight (1983) - not sure as to why). They're due June 8. EMI has set a May 31 release date for Queen's The Singles Collection Volume 3. This replicates 13 original 7" singles (sorry dance
On the Right (Sound)Track
Here at The Second Disc, there's a lot of coverage of soundtracks. (For proof, check Joe Marchese's recent exciting review of a few vault reissues by Henry Mancini.) Granted, not every fan of classic pop, rock and R&B catalogue releases is big on orchestral scores and whatnot, but it's an integral genre in the wide, wild world of reissues and worth covering from an artistic point of view. But recent revelations have shown that soundtrack catalogue comings and goings are worth covering from
Review: Two by Mancini
Henry Mancini would have gone down in film history had he only composed the instantly recognizable “Pink Panther Theme,” or supplied the melody to Johnny Mercer’s wistful lyric “Moon River.” But those accomplishments are mere tips of the iceberg for the man who scored over 80 films and recorded over 90 albums, garnering 20 Grammys and 4 Oscars along the way. Hardly a year goes by without a CD reissue of one of his classic scores, and 2010 is no exception, with 2 very different works given new
News Round-Up: Broken Wings, Hendrix Rocks, Phish in Exile and Film Score Tidbits
A big reissue is coming from indie reissue label Friday Music: a 25th anniversary reissue of Welcome to the Real World, the 1985 sophomore LP by Mr. Mister. This record, which spawned the Top 10 hits "Broken Wings," "Kyrie" and "Is It Love," is remastered direct from RCA's original master tapes and comes in a digipak. (No bonus tracks, but outside of a dance mix and dub for "Is It Love," there were none, really.) Amazon has this one listed for an April 20 release. (Thanks to Pause & Play for
Reissue Theory: More Novelties
It's almost the weekend, which hopefully means for you, the reader, a few days of fun and frolic. To that end, let's get the fun started early with a few particularly goofy Reissue Theory novelties. One is a one-hit wonder who managed to combine New Wave and a slightly older generation of music, and the other is an inexplicably house-oriented companion piece to a popular video game. Bet you won't find that combination anywhere else on the Internet today! Hit the jump to see which red-letter
Reissue Theory: Various Artists - "Soup for One: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"
There may not be enough positive words to write about Nile Rodgers. The sole surviving member of The CHIC Organization (which included bassist Bernard Edwards and drummer Tony Thompson), Rodgers helped shape the sound of late '70s and early '80s pop and R&B, either as a performer with CHIC, a producer - often alongside Edwards - for Diana Ross, Sister Sledge, Madonna and others or even as a sampled artist (see The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash
Reissue Theory: Various Artists, "Miami Vice"
Two days of nice weather in a row - especially after the kind of winter the northeast U.S. has had - will make you think of warmer climates really quickly. Music always seems to go well with higher temperatures (i.e.: barbecues, school dances, anything The Beach Boys sang about) - and one of the best pop cultural examples of this idea would be Miami Vice. The genesis behind the 1980s police show is the stuff of legend; NBC exec Brandon Tartikoff allegedly penned a memo that simply said "MTV