At The Movies – ‘The Soundtrack of Your Life – Vol. 2’
The 80’s were a prime time for good, popcorn movies and a lot still remain classics to this day. With gloss and high production values, you were guaranteed a great evening as you watched the stars fall in love, blow stuff up and get embroiled in the most ridiculous pranks known to man. Key to the enjoyment of these films was a roaring soundtrack, the songs from which just as famous and popular as the movies they featured in and as important to the success of the projects themselves. Often accompanied by montages from key scenes or as the musical accompaniment of pivotal moments, these songs became legend.
Of course, a lot of the films spawned sequels, a phenomenon that really took flight majorly in the era, and thus it is with this second volume of tracks from At The Movies, a collection of well known rock artists who produced their first selection to great acclaim. Cherry picking some more of the best from the era and rocking them up, this features cuts from ‘Doc Hollywood’, ‘Notting Hill’ and ‘Pretty Woman’ amongst others and, like the films, the results may be a bit of a mixed bag, there’s still a lot to enjoy here.
There’s an obvious love of the source material here and ‘Waiting For A Star To Fall’ is a suitably revved up opener, the key moments of the song turned up to eleven. ‘King of Wishful Thinking’ is equally as guitar-centric but it must be said that the vocals seem pedestrian compared to those of Pete Cox on the original but fortunately ‘The One and Only’ roars in afterwards, reiterating just how great the Chesney Hawkes original was, Nik Kershaw’s writing and guitarwork at its finest. Another dip comes with the power ballad reworking of ‘When You Say Nothing At All’, the results distinctly average and dated.
In bringing these tracks from the 1980’s there’s an inherent danger that the material may need to be severely shaken up to provide something different which can sometimes work well but often falls into parody. At The Movies choose to record the songs more or less faithfully to the overall ethos and if hair metal bands of the time had brought them out, adding modern touches to polish the work. There are some doubtless terrific versions here and both the ballsy ‘(You Drive Me) Crazy’ and hard rocking ‘Crush’ are a marked improvement on the originals and are genuine highlights of the album.
Elsewhere, the slightly overcooked, ‘(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight’ is still very good indeed and the guitar solo on ‘Venus’ really flies but the production on ‘Heaven Is A Place On Earth’ slathers everything with a thick layer of cheese. Whilst it’s certainly not going to win any Oscars, this musical dip into classic soundtracks might lack the top draw selection of the first instalment and may be a little disposable at times, it’s still a bit of fun. Like candyfloss or popcorn, it may be a sweet treat but ultimately not that long lasting and maybe one sequel to the original is just enough.
Review: Paul Monkhouse
TRACK LISTING:
01. Waiting For A Star To Fall
02. King Of Wishful Thinking
03. The One And Only
04. When You Say Nothing At All
05. (I Just) Died In Your Arms
06. (You Drive Me) Crazy
07. Heaven Is A Place On Earth
08. Crush
09. I’ve Been Thinking About You
10. Venus
11. I Want It That Way
Line-up:
Björn “Speed” Strid | vocals
Linnéa Vikström Egg | vocals
Chris Laney | guitars
Morten Sandager | keyboards
Allan Sørensen | drums
Pontus Egberg | bass
Pontus Norgren | guitars
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