We know why we're all here. And this third volume of Scamp's John Barry collection hands it to us right off the jump. It also bookends with Barry's collaboration with Duran Duran from 1985's "A View To A Kill". In between, it's a cavalcade of Barry's film score work, with a smattering of light music/pop/easy listening/however you care to label it. If you have the first two volumes, then what are you waiting for? You know what you want.
In my less than expert opinion, this second volume of John Barry's EMI work is worth listening to for two reasons. The first is track #1 on this 28-song collection: the John Barry Seven's theme from "The Magnificent Seven." It's one of those pieces that evokes a setting and a time; in this case, the first time you watched John Sturges' adaptation of "The Seven Samurai". It was a pop hit in the UK, reaching No. 45 on the UK charts, and a really cool version of Elmer Bernstein's original score.
The second is that Volume Two presents Barry's first solo work, "Stringbeat", which proves why this fits well on the Scamp roster. It's killer mood music, edgier than most of the sonic wallpaper that fell under the broad category of "easy listening". If anything, to me, it's a precursor to Swinging London, something you can spin between Who and Desmond Dekker singles. It's outstanding cocktail music and if you don't dig it, I don't know what to do about you.
It's pretty daunting to write about John Barry in light of his contributions to popular music, especially for a spud such as I. Far better writers have covered just about everything worth covering about the British composer/arranger, and all I can contribute is sharing this first volume of his pre-scoring work.
What appears here is Barry's rock 'n' roll and theme work, reflecting the earliest years of British rock. You can hear the last moments of light music in the first recordings of the John Barry Seven, how England first reacted to the likes of Duane Eddy in the JBS's cover of "Rebel Rouser", and Barry's first film theme work from "Beat Girl" and "Never Let Go", a pair of 1960 films featuring teen idol Adam Faith.
"Is it good, dude?" you might ask. Well, this isn't get the spins from me that the second and third volumes will. But there's parts contained herein that are definitely worth revisiting, which is exactly what I'd expect from a legendary composer like Barry.
It only took me around 40-something years before I finally came around on what made Siouxie & The Banshees so great, so this wasn't something I would have sought out even just a few years ago. This is just an unbelievably cool collection, curated by Siouxie Sioux and Steve Severin. You know, those two.
Primarily comprised of film and stage music, spanning the 1940s to the early 60s, and loaded with sounds you've almost certainly absorbed throughout your life, whether you're 12 or 80. C'mon, you don't have to have been a Disney kid to know "When You Wish Upon A Star" or "A Night On Bare Mountain"...but it helps. For those of us who grew up on the western side of the Atlantic, maybe we didn't get turned on to the themes from "Whiplash", "The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre", or "Fireball XL5". But they left indelible marks on they who did encounter them; hence their appearances here.
This is also a good introduction to Satie, Lotte Lenya, not Bernard Herrmann; not to mention Siouxie & The Banshees representing with their 1987 cover of a song from "The Jungle Book". That's why I'll be packing this off in a care package to my 11-year-old niece, who deserves to hear only the finest.
My therapist's jaw dropped. "You haven't seen 'Dune: Part Two' yet?" All I could say was "nope". I have a great illogical fondness for David Lynch's 1984 dream piece. I like Denis Villenueve and Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet and Hans Zimmer, but I LOVE Lynch and Sean Young and Kyle McLachlan and fuckin' Toto. TOE-TOE, yo! The Porcaro boys play the tunes for intergalactic subterfuge!
Everything about the soundtrack, including the Eno/Eno/Lanois "Prophecy Theme", is feverish and bombastic. I have a difficult time imagining the film with a more conventional soundtrack. Just as much as John Williams' original trilogy scores and James Horner's score for "Aliens", this is a go-to for me for those head down, focus in moments at work. I can't consider giving room to something that might replace it in my brain. Not to mention that the film score/yacht rock Venn diagram has very little overlap, and I think we should appreciate the rare places that the overlap exists.
So here's a Tuesday bonus. Do something heroic or triumphant today. Remember: he who controls the spice, controls the universe!
"I am a star / A Hal Hartley movie / I read my lines / Straight faced in the mirror"
Kind Of Like Spitting, "Your Favorite Actor"
Here's another Matador soundtrack from the mid 90s, this time from Hal Hartley''s fifth film, 1994's Amateur.
Does it feature Martin Donovan? You bet it does.
Is Parker Posey in it? She is not.
It does star Isabelle Huppert, a secret crush of mine, as an ex-nun named "Isabelle" who gets wrapped up in criminal hijinks spining out of her new career as a pornographer.
Did you get all that? I was told recently I had a way with log lines, but I dunno.
This is one of the places where Liz Phair, My Bloody Valentine, and the Jesus Lizard could comfortably rub elbows back in those days. And I find the Ned Rifle/Jeffrey Taylor score to be a pretty great appendix to what would have otherwise been a decent Lollapalooza 1995 sampler.
8/10. Now go watch the movie. You're going to have to find a physical copy, tho; it's ain't on streaming here in the States.
The missus is now almost a year deep into daily French lessons, which means I've been watching a fair amount more French cinema than is usual. Which was already a sizable amount.
So we've been revisiting Jacques Tati's six films again. I snagged her Criterion's The Complete Jacques Tati a few years back; no need to figure out where or if they're being streamed. And I found this lil gem in a stack of cruddy easy listening and modern jazz CDs at an estate sale a few months ago. It's all music scored for Tati's first four films, from composers including Alain Romans, Francis Lemarque, and Franck Barcellini.
Slap this on, revel in the caperin' and clownin'. It is all very, how you say, French.
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| Photo of Ennio Morricone with Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza by Roberto Masotti |
It took from May to August 2000 to go from 100 to 200 posts. Then I hit 300 posts two days before Christmas 2000. And now I'm here, anot...
