Indie Soundtracks Music

Good listening,but variety in music selections were a bit lacking in content...i.e. missing songs.
Overall fairly well put together.

David Michael Frank can put out some awesome scores in his movies. This whole cd is good. The songs stand on their own, even if they weren't part of Seagal's movies.

A week ago I broke out my Amazon shipment of Big Chief's Mack Avenue Skullgame and popped the CD in my car stereo. It's been there ever since.

This disc needs to be taken as a whole instead of breaking the album down song-by-song. As one reviewer here stated, its basically a soundtrack for a non-existent blaxploitation film, a-la Superfly or Shaft, updated for the early 90's style gang-banger. No hip-hop here: The Big Chief band was an early (a bit before their time, unfortunately) entry into the funk-rock school, and gave up the ghost before that genre really took off (think the Red Hot Chili Peppers, if they'd been Motor City madmen instead of laid-back Westcoast funksters).

The band sounds fantastic here; much more tightly focused than on previous albums, and finally go all the way with their funk roots, fleshing out their sound by incorporating piano and horns. However -- The absolute best tunes here (if you have to get picky) are highlighted by the amazing bluesy vocals of singer Thornetta Davis - who eventually took the front for good with the impossible to find five-song EP, Shout Out, and then with her first solo album, Sunday Morning Music. Listen to one of the samples posted here to see what I mean: One Born Every Minute (Doc's Theme), Sonica, and No Free Love On This Street (Sonica's Theme - also on the Shout Out EP, along with a blistering cover of George Clinton/Funkadelic's Funky Dollar Bill...), well, these are simply the funky equivalent of heaven.

This is one of the best "unheard" of bands from Detroit. The raw heavy rock infused with the great vocals of local legend Thonetta Davis is enough to tear a hole in your a$$. As an added bonus there is some cool art in the sleeve created by Mark Dancey (Guitarist/ Artist) If you like music and you havn't heard this buy it today.

This album is soundtrack music to a film that does not exist. To these ends there are songs that leave you kind of wondering "what the hell?" as if you actually need some visual for them to make sense. This quip aside, the album rocks hard, as do all of their albums. Mack Ave. is certainly their best effort with highlights being "One Born Every Minute" and "No Free Love On This Street." Thornetta Davis sings on the latter. The heart and soul of Big Chief, also play on her wonderful solo debut "Sunday Morning Music." To give you the flavor of Big Chief imagine Black Sabbath injected with a little George Clinton, Eddie Hazel inspired funk. It is truly a shame that these guys never get the recognition that they deserve. If this endorsement is not enough: Iggy Pop thinks they're really cool. If you like Iggy, Funkadelic, and Black Sabbath, then you'll like Big Chief. No matter who stands at the mike, these guys lay it down and make sure it stays there.

I like a few of the Williams tracks. Such as GIANT'S EYE. With that trumpet passage that's later taken up by the flute. HIDDEN GUN benefits from the electric-piano echoplex or whatever the heck it is. But then those french horns come blasting in again to annoy the crap out of me. There's too much empty french-horn blowhardism from Williams. Courage's score is actually preferable if only because it's easier on the ear. It's dependably loaded with those Courage-esque chromatic brass descensions.

I don't need to tell you how good the music is. Everyone else has already done that. And besides, you wouldn't be here if you didn't already like it.
Just be forewarned: the track listing doesn't match the actual number of tracks. The cd states that there are 11 tracks. There are actually 10. What are listed as tracks 4 and 5 are actually combined on the cd as track 4. Adjust the track labels accordingly.

Just the sound of the theme music would make my pulse race as a kid and almost 30 years later it still works it magic!

As brilliant as anything ever done by the composer, "Land of the Giants" is a roller coaster ride befitting the "larger-than-life" escapades of the crew and passengers of the Spindrift as they try to survive in a world of gargantuan proportions. This bit of early John Williams illustrates why he has been one of the top choices by directors for over forty years.

Johnny Williams, now called and known as the "John Williams" of "Star Wars" and many other scores to numerous to mention, compiled music for "Land of the Giants" series and episode for "The Crash" on April 15th, 1968. Williams original theme for the series begins with a hint of danger, but quickly segues into a rhythmic, upbeat signature featuring French horns. This score is highly dramatic, restless and the most musically advanced for it's time on the small tube.

It's clear to see why Williams triumphed during this period of his career, as he went on to "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) and "The Towering Inferno" (1974), both of which would require considerable dramatic music and both brough Williams Academy Award Nominations. The opening and closing themes for Season One and Two are truly classic television scoring. GNP/Crescendo you're the only label we can count on, another winner for all - "True Sci-Fi Collectors"!

Total Time: 43:21 on 11 Tracks/ GNP-Crescendo Records - GNPD 8048 (1996)

This is a fun CD of lively music where most of the songs are classics. Where else can you find Mitch Ryder, Eddie Floyd, Bobby Caldwell, and Sonny & Cher? This is great party or traveling music. Pop it in the CD player when you're going on a long trip and enjoy the ride or if you're at a party that needs to get started.

This is a fantastic collection of oldies that you would probably hear on any decent jukebox in a old diner, especially The Peach Pit!

From "Good Golly Miss Molly" to "Satisfaction", this is a "must have" for your collection.
Whether or not you are a 90210 fan, the 15 songs on this CD are well worth the price!
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This is throw back to another era, but if you are a Shirley Booth enthusiast like myself, you will enjoy her renditions of the turn of the century songs, which in some cases remind me of the songs in High Button Shoes, only, of course that show was much better! I think there is a plus with the delightful African American actress and songstress, Mae Barnes and her renditions of Happy Habit, and Hang Up...quite comical and good!! Also Wilbur Evans is a standout in his numbers! Will never forget Shirley Booth as Hazel and whenever I hear her voice I think of that character she played on Television for so many years...for Shirley Booth completists there is also "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", which was also a show of hers from the early fifties and is quite good...the music is a little more memorable from that show...Anyhow this is a good buy!

BY THE BEAUTIFUL SEA is one of those Broadway shows that ran simply on the box-office value of its star - Shirley Booth. The score (by Arthur Schwartz and Dorothy Fields) isn't really exciting or memorable, and the storyline (about a colorful boardinghouse by the sea) was hackneyed even by 1954's standards. Shirley Booth was the sole reason why BEAUTIFUL SEA ran for a respectable 270 performances, earning Miss Booth a Tony nomination as well as a Donaldson Award. Miss Booth co-stars with Wilbur Evans (who played Emile opposite Mary Martin in the original London run of SOUTH PACFIC), Mae Barnes and Cameron Prud'homme.

The show also marked the Broadway debut of talented actress Cathryn Damon who appeared in the dancing ensemble. Shirley Booth sings the charming "Lottie Gibson Specialty" and the score also includes "Old Enough to Love", "Happy Habit", "More Love than Your Love", "Throw the Anchor Away" and "Good Time Charlie".

DRG reissue of the 1954 Broadway show BY THE BEAUTIFUL SEA is a curiosity. Angel reissued this as part of their Broadway Classics series, but it sold very poorly and was quickly deleted. The only people who would want this cast album are collectors who want every single show that has ever been recorded. (Thats me!) That said, I have never warmed to this score at all. I have always found the show dull and the album duller. Angel's release had some good background notes.

First-the show itself was a flop. Not a very original story. But the music is pretty good, not great, but pretty good. The reason that I rate it 4 stars is for Shirley Booth. She gave a 5 star performance in a 3 star musical. Most of the critics adored her in this show and praised her performance (see the book "Opening Nights on Broadway"). Listen to the song "Coney Island Boat" where she sings "In the Good Old Summertime". FANTASTIC! So get this cd just for her brilliant performance. And get "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"(Broadway musical version). She shines in that one, too.

Go ahead, life is short, buy it. Also buy "Grayfolded", which I have never gotten tired of after dozens (okay, maybe not a lot of dozens) of listens.

I've found that, every time I find something that I personally find to be absolutely wonderful, some other people will agree with me, but there are quite likely just as many people who have exactly the opposite opinion. When Smooth Earl (whose opinion you will find immediately below) says "I was doing stuff like that on my tape recorder back in '83 when I was in 4th grade, and I did a better job than this guy", it reminds me all those people who say their dog could make a better painting than Jackson Pollock (or Pablo Picasso).
In some cases these people really can't see the difference between a smudge and a Pollock. That's OK. Perhaps to Smooth Earl the entire oeuvre of John Oswald really does sound like something he did in the 4th grade (when are you going to release your album Earl, so we can compare?).
Poor hearing-deprived man, but still, everyone is entitled to have their opinion.
What I object to is Earl saying, "You will be severely disappointed just like me." What a stupid, narrow-minded statement. I obviously don't share your opinion Earl, and there others who don't think like you do - please check out the reviews at the bottom of the page.
I wish that there were listening samples for each of the 60 tracks in this box set, because, like it or not, there is undeniably more variety in this package than in any other musical offering I can think of. Sure there probably is something here for everyone to dislike, but for anyone with open ears, and a desire for surprises, this is a cornucopia of all kinds of music; each kind presented in a new way, sometimes subtly and sometimes brutally.
I suspect that neither Smooth Earl or "a music fan" listened any further than the first couple of tracks, because when they make their analogies to changing radio stations every two seconds they obviously haven't listened to Rainbow, which is an elegiac, glistening shifting of perfectly consonant chords played by the 101 String Orchestra like one big wave; or PreLieu where a live string quartet plays a sinuous, sensual variation of one of Beethoven's prettiest tunes; or Anon which is a chorus of the beautiful voice of Tim Buckley.
And then there is the fast-paced stuff. Perhaps Smooth Earl could edit in the 4th grade as well as Oswald, but I've never heard anyone who can dice and splice as intricately and precisely as can be found in any number of the cuts on Plunderphonic.
In addition to getting a lot of music in this box set, one will also discover a treasure chest of detailed notes (in the 40,000 word interview Oswald sometimes speaks as acrobatically as he composes) and a lot of often very funny visuals which are another way to get an idea of what the music is like. For example, look at the cover collage above: a group photo of U2 has been transformed into a band of Frankensteins, in which David Bowie and Barbra Streisand, or Boy George and Billy Gibbons get grafted into one person.
Oswald suggests that Power (composed in 1975) is perhaps the first Rap song. It was created independent of the concurrent experiments of Afrika Bambaataa and crew, predates Byrne and Eno's similar experiments by 5 years, and in its use of Led Zepplin riffs it predates the Beastie Boys by a decade. One of the reasons some of this music sounds so unusual is that it was created so much ahead of its time. It's kind of like the case of Trout Mask Replica (which also gets transformed by Oswald).
Unlike other commentators I won't presume to say whether you should get this set or not. But I think that any listener whose range of listening interests can go from Stravinsky to Metallica to Public Enemy might be intrigued. Or any one who wants to hear an Agatha Christie story as if it was transformed by James Joyce... or Dolly Parton slowly turn into a man... or Bill Frisell playing with Elvis Presley... Debussy sung by a bird... an almost brand new Doors song ... Anton Webern and the Beach Boys ... Fine Young Cannibals with Annie Lennox (ten years before mash-ups)... a cubist Count Basie... Madonna granulated... it's all here.

This is probably one of the most annoying compilations I have acquired. While intriguing as a concept, this "music of the last fifty years in a blender" approach comes off as rather grating. A bit like someone constantly changing the radio station without stopping.

69/96 is perhaps the definitive set of John Oswald's experimental Plunderphonics, a two-disc retrospective covering most of his most famous and often brilliant work, from the entireity of the ultra rare Electrax (or Rubiyat, as Electra renamed it) EP to selections from Plexure, Grayfolded, the original (and highly illegal) Plunderphonics CD, and Discosphere.

For the uninformed, Plunderphonics is sampling taken to the next level, songs manipulated, sometimes beyond recognition and often to completely alter their meaning. Just to briefly list some of the tracks on this album would be difficult. There's Chuck Berry songs compressed down to 10 seconds or less (the Barely tracks), Dolly Parton singing a duet with a slowed-down version of herself (Pretender), the Kronos Quartet compared and contrasted with a generic heavy metal band (Mach), a mashup of the Carly Simon and Faster Pussycat renditions of "Vain" (Vane), a marathon of different singers and their renditions of the Phil Spector song "Ebb Tide" (Ebb), and many many more. It's extremely hard to describe half of these songs without making them sound like less than they are. It's popular music completely mutated into something completely above and beyond most anything pop music has to offer, and some of the tracks showcased were even ahead of their time (such as "Power," a combination of Led Zeppelin riffs and televangical ranting that could almost count as one of the first rap songs).

Augmenting the 62 tracks found in this collection is a comprehensive interview with John Oswald that gives key insight into most of the tracks on the discs: how they were made, what they were made for, the history of Plunderphonics, and much much more. Almost no stone is unturned, and some of the songs he mentions in passing that didn't make the cut for this set also serve to pique one's interest. Maybe another Plunderphonics box set will eventually see the light of day if we're lucky.

All told, this is an extremely well done and exceptionally brilliant package, and should be essential for fans of experimental music or to those who would like to know exactly what sort of possibilities sampling can hold as a medium in and of itself. I'd recommend getting this as soon as you can. While the copyright lawyers haven't made a fuss over this album yet, who knows when they might.

Yeah, I heard about this "Plunderphonics" thing in SPIN and ROlling Stone, and they went on and on about how "essential" and "awesome" it was. Then I thought this guy in the review right before mine was just being a "hater" or whatever, but DANG if he wasn't right!

I'm a fan of remixes and samples of sorts, so this compilation piqued my curiosity, but ... I should've saved my money. Yeah, sure, you'll recognize a snippet here and there of a song or a popular artist's voice, but it's so choppy ... and there's no "flow" to it ... it is not music of any kind, just irritating noise. Just like the other guy said, it's like some lil' kid won't quit playing with the radio so it skips to every other station every 2 seconds. Heck, I was doing stuff like that on my tape recorder back in '83 when I was in 4th grade, and I did a better job than this guy.

If you have been wanting to buy this compilation, do yourself a favor: close your eyes, take a deep breath, open your eyes, and LET IT GO. You will be severely disappointed just like me.

I am usually wary of Morricone compilations as they tend to hit the "high spots", when all of us Morricone freaks know that it's the hidden jewels in the obscure soundtracks (early 1970's in particular) that keep us coming back for more. Surprise, surprise, then, that "Morricone 2001" is a compilation of those "hidden jewels" and what a treat it is. I'm particularly struck by "Ultimo", which is one of those full on, big band happy Morricone songs that pratically makes life worth living. Another treat is "Barbablu" or "Bluebeard" to us English speakers. This has long been missing from CD and the main theme is one of Morricone's most original, if not best: whimsical, nostalgic and melodic with some alarming vocalisations by the "duck man". So here we have, finally, a compilation that accomplishes something beyond giving us "the greatest hits". The packaging is quite deluxe, too, and worth every penny.

Oh, dear. I teach PRIDE AND PREJUDICE in my English classes; I also teach theatre. So when I discovered this CD, I picked it up with high hopes. I'm very, very sorry to say that they were dashed. I listened to the whole CD--well, ok, I fast-forwarded through some songs after I'd heard too, too much--to give it a chance to get better, but the only numbers I actually enjoyed were the instrumentals.

First, Farley Granger is trying to channel Louis Jordan in GIGI (who in turn was trying, unsuccessfully in my opinion, to appropriate the Rex Harrison method of speak-singing). Second, Hermione Gingold was hard enough to listen to in a good show (NIGHT MUSIC). Third, Polly Bergen is a terrible Elizabeth Bennet--she really wants to be playing a Rosalind Russell part somewhere; she's raspy and brassy rather than spirited and intelligent. Fourth, and probably most important, the show is a horrid misrepresentation of Austen's book. I understand that the novel is long and a show can only be 2 1/2 hours, but it takes liberties that are just too dreadful to be tolerated.

Don't buy it.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS is a rather-enjoyable Broadway flop that is, believe it or not, a musical version of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"!

Polly Bergen, in her third Broadway show (after JOHN MURRAY ANDERSON'S ALMANAC and THE CHAMPAGNE COMPLEX) is a delight as Elizabeth Bennet, the eldest daughter of Mrs Bennet (Hermione Gingold). Bergen sings some lovely songs in this score, but her big payoff comes in the eleven o'clock number "This Really Isn't Me", which she colors with her husky and warm voice. More recently the incantory Ms Bergen has returned to Broadway in the revival of FOLLIES as Carlotta Campion; and subbed for Carole Shelley in the role of Frau Schneider in CABARET.

Farley Granger (in his Broadway musical debut) sounds quite ill-at-ease with his songs, though his comical duet with Bergen in "A Perfect Evening" is quite enjoyable.

Hermione Gingold is perfectly-suited to the role of the pushy Mrs Bennet, and is backed up beautifully by Phyllis Newman (SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING), Lois Bewley, Lauri Peters (THE SOUND OF MUSIC) and Lynn Ross as her other daughters.

The score by Robert Goldman, Glenn Paxton and George Weiss is quite interesting, though hardly suits the time-period of the piece.

All-in-all, a great recording for Broadway buffs.

This musical , adapted from Pride and Prejudice, starred Ms. Bergen, Hermione Gingold, Farley Granger and Phyllis Newman. They're all delightful, and though the score isn't great, it's quite enjoyable and all of Ms. Bergen's numbers are just wonderful. What a treat to finally have this show on CD. The folks at DRG are to be commended for caring enough to release these great 50's and 60's shows,fondly remembered by many of us! It's nice to know there are folks who care for more than just the bottom line!

I was in boarding school when I was visiting NYC and my parents got me a ticket for an SRO performance of First Impressions. That day, Ellen Hanley was announced as performing Elizabeth Bennet - some people left BUT Hanley got a standing ovation at the end of the performance - I am so happy that she is on the record as Charlotte Lucas - I know when I bought the LP, I found Polly Bergen not as entrancing as Ellen Hanley was on stage. Anyhow, Gingold was brilliant as the coarse Mrs Bennet and Granger superb! As an 19th C English BA I still rave about this adaption - thank you DRG for this, Kean, Happiest Girl, Christine and many others - how about Baker Street, Minnie's Boys, Donnybrook and A Time for Singing! A very good nostalgic recording of the golden days of musicals!