Shake Sauvage: French Soundtracks 1968-1973 (Superb Album)

The French know and love their movies like no one else in Europe, so it's no surprise that they've produced a few top-notch film composers over the years. The folks at Crippled Dick Hot Wax, the German label that has unearthed all manner of offbeat film music, pay homage to a little-acknowledged side of French movie scoring with Shake Sauvage, a disc featuring cues from 15 different Gallic films released between 1968 and 1973 (with a bit of funky library stock music and one retro-styled cut from the '80s rounding out the track listing). On Shake Sauvage, the focus is on French music that seemingly channels hipper American sounds of the day, from the cool jazz-funk of Claude Bolling's "Full Speed" and the naïve neo-psychedelia of Roland Vincent's "LSD Party" (complete with some of the least fluid wah-wah guitar ever recorded) to the ominous spy movie sounds of George Garvarentz's "Les Temps des Loups," and the lush, seductive organ groove of Jean-Pierre Mirouze's "Sexopolis." Actually, lush organ is one of the dominant themes of this disc (Brian Auger appears on several tracks) along with a pervasive fondness for American pop music filtered through the lens of classic-era European cool. Shake Sauvage seems to have been assembled with denizens of the space age bachelor pads crowd in mind rather than connoisseurs of notable film music, but thankfully this set works nicely on both levels -- fans of upscale Eurotrash cinema will eat this up, as will anyone who likes their pop music grand, polished and just a little bit strange. Mais oui!

AMG Review by Mark Deming

Gert Wilden Orchester - The Schulmädchen Report (Sountrack from German Softcore Movies of the 60's - Great Album)

The tag end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s brought a river of permissiveness into film, with sexploitation getting a pretty good foothold in American drive-ins and cheap theaters -- not porn, but softcore weirdness involving lots of young people running around naked in whatever circumstances could be concocted. As good as America's breed of low-rent filmmakers got with this, though, they couldn't hold a candle to the Europeans -- particularly the Germans, who all but turned softcore into a science. It may well be that America retreated to cheap horror movies in self-defense (and a case could be made that the English also beat a retreat, assuming a hardcore literary stance). And so, Germany produced Schulmäedchen Report (Schoolgirl Report), its many sequels, and its ilk. There were a lot of them, many of which wound up exported, badly dubbed, and run to death. If they didn't have a soundtrack by Gert Wilden & His Orchestra, then they weren't worth bothering with -- well, at least according to the liner notes here. Going by the evidence at hand, the liner notes might well be right. Wilden's music is a wonderfully demented pastiche that takes its inspiration from all kinds of sources -- "Dirty Beat" swipes from Led Zeppelin, but chucks in bits of acid rock, crazed Farfisa organ, and drum work that sounds like tap-dancing piledrivers. Other cuts teeter on the edge of pure lounge, there's bits of smoky jazz, R&B, crazily mangled surf music, whatever else can be jammed in and will stick -- listening to this is like dealing with weather in Vermont: wait a couple of minutes and it'll change completely. One moment it's lolling saxophone, and the next it's James Last on amphetamines. It all fits, it's often hilarious, and it is absolutely worth keeping on hand. The album producers have also provided multiple liner notes (in English, German, and very small type) that explain the background of the films, provide biographical information about Gert Wilden, and have a little fun with the audience. Lobby cards and stills are scattered liberally throughout so that booklet begins to resemble a photo essay on nudism (the booklet front and the tray card feature nude stills as well; no disguises evident here.) The music, however, remains interesting long after the images have become boring.

AMG Review by Steven McDonald

Mark Knopfler - Cal (OST 1984)

With the core of Dire Straits augumented by Paul Brady and Liam O'Flynn, Knopfler set out to give this score a somewhat Irish spin, though keeping that light. A quiet, reflective set of cues that eschew false dramatics in favor of supporting the story. Knopfler completists will want the entire album, of course; others might as well settle for the several excerpts on Screenplaying.

AMG Review by Steven McDonald

I Shot Andy Warhol (OST 1996)

I Shot Andy Warhol has the elements that every tribute album strives to capture: great bands interpreting great songs while injecting enough of their own personalities to make the recording and listening processes worthwhile. From Luna's smooth version of Donovan's "Season of the Witch" to Wilco's rendition of the Neil Young-penned "Burned" to Ben Lee's channeling of the Small Faces on "Itchycoo Park," no one missteps in their attempts to pay homage to the original artists. Even Jewel proves capable when tackling Donovan's "Sunshine Superman," which along with R.E.M.'s take on the Troggs' "Love Is All Around" and Bettie Serveert's interpretation of Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine," rounds out the cover portion of the album. Also included are classic tracks from the Lovin' Spoonful, Love, MC5, and Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, as well as original tracks by Pavement and Yo La Tengo. Fittingly, the Velvet Underground's John Cale scores the "I Shot Andy Warhol Suite."

AMG Review by Michael Frey

Until The End Of The World (OST 1991)

Until the End of the World is a definite contender for best motion picture soundtrack of the 1990s. With a lineup that includes Talking Heads, Lou Reed, R.E.M., Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Depeche Mode, U2, and others all providing original songs or new covers, it's an absolute joy. Interspersed with Graeme Revell's haunting ambient score, virtually every pop/rock track works perfectly as part of a cohesive whole. "Sax and Violins," recorded during the dying days of Talking Heads, might be the band's most confident moment, as a jazzy background shuffle and keyboards provide compelling momentum underneath David Byrne's sarcastic vocals. Crime & the City Solution could have made an entire career out of the emotional yet existential "The Adversary." R.E.M. and Depeche Mode both contribute touching ballads. "Fretless" is one of the most beautiful tracks to be found in R.E.M.'s discography, documenting a wounded relationship with subtle grace. "Death's Door" is one of those sad numbers Depeche Mode fans have grown to love, with Martin Gore handling the vocals. Less emotional themes are found in the contributions of Lou Reed and Can. "(I'll Love You) Till the End of the World" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is dark, hilarious, and ultimately quite touching. Jane Siberry handles the soundtrack's most pristine, moving moment with "Calling All Angels"; k.d. lang's background vocals give the song a sweet, angelic feel. In addition to the greatness of the songs, the album is perfectly sequenced. It's hard to imagine a better song progression than that of the one from Julee Cruise to Neneh Cherry here. Throw in U2's Achtung Baby-shared track "Until the End of the World" and a Kinks cover by Elvis Costello, and it's almost impossible to think of a better soundtrack from or to the 1990s.

AMG Review by Tim DiGravina

Goran Bregovic/Iggy Pop - Arizona Dream (OST 1999)

Soundtrack from Emir Kusturica's Arizona Dream by Goran Bregović featuring the vocals and lyrics of Iggy Pop on tracks 1, 4 & 6 and the lyrics of Emir Kusturica as well as the vocals of Iggy Pop on track 10. In the film, apart from the music on soundtrack, there are also three songs of Django Reinhardt.

Easy Rider (OST 1969)

Easy Rider was the surprise box-office hit of the summer of 1969, a low-budget film about a couple of hippies who use their profits from a drug deal to drive their motorcycles across the Southwest and attend New Orleans' Mardi Gras celebrations, encountering adventures and tragedy along the way. It turned out to be a telling portrait of America's cultural divide in the late '60s, and no small part of its impact was the soundtrack music, which eschewed a traditional score (the filmmakers couldn't have afforded that, anyway) in favor of rock music. Even then, director Dennis Hopper didn't have much special music written, instead mostly using songs he'd heard on the radio in 1968 while he was editing the film. (In the liner notes to the 2000 CD reissue, Hopper claims that he canceled a proposed Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young score when he became enamored with his own selections; other accounts claim the film studio insisted on the music used in the rough cut.)

So, the film's music consisted of such 1968 rock radio favorites as Steppenwolf's "The Pusher" and "Born to Be Wild," the Band's "The Weight," the Byrds' "Wasn't Born to Follow," and the Jimi Hendrix Experience's "If Six Was Nine," with such humorous changes of pace as the Holy Modal Rounders' cosmic folk song "If You Want to Be a Bird" and Fraternity of Man's marijuana-smoking behavior guide "Don't Bogart Me." Hopper had little trouble persuading various record labels to grant the screen rights to these songs at a time when re-used rock wasn't heard much in movies. Roger McGuinn, making his solo performing debut, contributed new recordings of Bob Dylan's "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" and his own specially written "Ballad of Easy Rider," actually co-written with Dylan, who was not credited.

When Easy Rider became a successful film upon release, a decision was made to release a soundtrack album, and most labels agreed to license their tracks to Dunhill/ABC. Only Capitol Records held out, so the Band's version of "The Weight" was replaced by a near-copy recorded by Dunhill act Smith. The soundtrack album also featured some dialogue and sound effects from the film. The result was a commercial bonanza: The album reached the Top Ten and went gold, becoming the second most successful soundtrack LP of the year, after the Nino Rota score to Romeo and Juliet. Just as the film transformed values in Hollywood, the soundtrack album helped give birth to a new business in which soundtrack albums became collections of various pop songs that sometimes out-grossed the films with which they were associated.

Its very success ironically doomed the availability of the Easy Rider soundtrack album, however. By the CD era, the various labels that controlled the songs were no longer happy to license their material, and the album went out of print, although a CD was issued overseas in 1993. Finally, on June 13, 2000, MCA managed to bring the Easy Rider soundtrack album back into print in the U.S. Thirty-one years later, it still sounded like a good thematic collection, reflecting the film's values of drug use and open-road freedom. Songs like "Born to Be Wild" and "The Weight" had long-since been enshrined as rock classics, and the lighter material continued to amuse, confirming Easy Rider as both a historical document and an entertaining listen, especially to those who knew the film.

AMG Review by William Ruhlmann