Trollheart

Damn it! Now you mention it, I remember you telling me that. But when I got to the file I had forgotten all about the changes. Hope it didn't ruin the review; I was just anxious to get it posted before we hit December...

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Plankton

To be honest, the 3 new tunes I had added really make the whole experience better, and treating the song Sunshine Express/All Aboard as a bonus track on the YT video was something I thought would be kind of neat for anyone willing to look into it. I'd love to hear your opinion about it, but if you don't have the time, then it's no problem. Still, your current review is more than gracious, and I'm really happy you liked what you heard.

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Plankton

I said HAD alot.

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Trollheart

I like to think that it's coincidence that this movie came out in 1986, the same year as the one in the previous segment, “Speed 2”, and in fact when I realised that I almost moved on, looking for another film to feature before this, but damn it, it is just such a perfect example of a really basic and vacuous movie that has such a bitchin' soundtrack that I felt I had to go with it. Not only that, it made the career of one actor and brought another to our attention, reintroduced us to some old rock favourites and gave one of the acts here a number one worldwide smash. To say nothing of the boost it gave to recruitment for the US Navy! Yeah, we're talking about the one and only

Oddly enough, for what I now consider to be a pretty poor movie, it seems to be very highly regarded, and indeed when I went to see it at what would have been the tender age of 23, I loved it. What young guy wouldn't? Power, speed, weapons, hot girls, shooting down the bad guys, motorbikes, sex ... this had it all. But when I look back at it now --- and I seem to be in the minority here, though you can tell me if you feel the same --- it really was nothing more than a massive gung-ho propaganda stunt for US military force and the policies of what would have been the Reagan administration at the time.

I'm sure I don't need to go into the details --- not that there are many --- as no doubt everyone's seen the movie, but basically Tom Cruise joins the US Navy's Fighter Weapons School, known as Top Gun, learning to become an even better pilot than he is. He grapples with the legacy of his father's death and comes to terms blah blah blah. If you really want a full synopsis here it is Top Gun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia but what I'm concerned with here as ever is the music. You can argue over whether the film is a classic or a borefest, or indeed a thinly-disguised recruitment tool for the Navy, but in the end I don't care. The fact is, the music kicks bottom and that's what I'm going to discuss here.

Top Gun OST --- Various Artists --- 1986 (Columbia)

As you would probably expect, it's full of high-powered, rip-roaring rock, an octane-fuelled journey that takes you through some true stars of past and present. Some are household names, some are almost unknown, but virtually every song on this album --- or every piece of music --- is close to flawless. Well, maybe that's a bit strong. But there are no bad tracks. Check your six, Goose and plot a course: we're heading in!

There are, apparently, three versions of this album, the first (the one I know and own) released at the time of the movie, 1986, with a reissue in 1999 adding five more tracks and another release in 2006 which put yet another five on, making the final total twenty tracks, big for any soundtrack of the day. As most of the added tracks are pretty good anyway, I'll include them in yet another departure from my practice of not including bonus tracks. They're not really bonus material anyway: they're all on different issues.

So the original then --- and both other versions, as all extra tracks were added to the end --- begins with the powerful and bouncy “Danger Zone”, performed by Kenny Loggins. Before I go into the track details, I've found out some interesting stuff from my friends over Wiki way. Seems Loggins was actually not the first choice to sing this. In fact, the label approached both Toto and REO Speedwagon to perform the song, which was written by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock. Both bands declined; Toto became a victim of lawyergate, as the two sets of attorneys fought it out, Toto's lot eventually declining to allow the band perform the song, while REO wanted to use some of their own songs on the soundtrack but were told to go away, so they did. Loggins was then signed up. He apparently had no problems singing the song, which was good news for him as it brought him back into the spotlight after “Footloose” (come on, be honest: who remembers him for anything other than that? Even now?) and gave him a smash hit in the USA, taking the single to number two, although it never even scraped into the top forty over here. But then, America's where it's at, yeah? And this was an American film, with American actors about an American military service (if for some reason you weren't aware of that take a gander at the stars-and-stripes proudly displayed on both the film poster and the soundtrack album cover) so who cared about some Europeans never buying the single? Loggins had hit gold, and he was back. For a while.

Others who were approached and declined to participate include Bryan Adams, who disliked the idea of glamourising war which the film does so well, and Toto, who were to use their song "Only you" in place of Berlin's smash, but were turned down when the lawyers got involved. It's a pity really, as it's an excellent song, as you can hear below, and would probably have been as big a hit as "Take my breath away". Judas Priest also refused to contribute their song "Reckless", but for a different reason: they believed the movie would bomb. Oh, Rob! Did you ever get it wrong!

The song itself, weirdly, starts out almost as does his other big hit, and I wonder if ... let me just check here ...no, Moroder was not involved in that song. Oh well. Anyway after a second or two you realise you are definitely not listening to “Footloose II” as the guitars break in and the power amps right up. To be honest, I'm not sure Loggins's voice suits this: it sounds a little too high-pitched and a little weak, but he soon grows into it and the song really is carried on the guitar work of Dan Huff, who really plays a blinder, and the thumping percussion that drives it along like a marauding F-14 Tomcat. It's the perfect opener: powerful, fast, full of energy and arrogance and promising great things, which is not a promise broken.

Point of no interest to anyone else: I used to think the line was “I went to the danger zone”, when it is in fact “Highway to the danger zone”. Highway? What F-14 you know that uses a highway? Anyway, on we go. The tone has been established, we've had a great opener so it had better stay high quality.

Well, if I say the words Cheap Trick, you know the answer to that. A hard, punching rock song with the Cheap Trick flair for style, oddly enough not written by them but in fact penned by Harold Faltermeyer, who later contributes the theme, and was known to us prior to this for the hit “Axel F” from the movie Beverly Hills Cop, and Mark Spiro, who has worked with Laura Branigan, Heart, John Waite and Bad English, among others. Great sense of AOR in this song, some great keyboard work and a perfect vocal, with biting guitars like sidewinder missiles and a driving pounding rhythm. Kenny Loggins is back again then for “Playing with the boys”, a more dancy, rootsy sort of song with sort of whistling synth over it a la The Cars on “Heartbeat City”. Not one of my favourites, with its hard, echoing drumbeat and a sense of “”Flashdance” somehow. The chorus warps into decent AOR, but it's still a little low on my list of good tracks on this album.

It's time to welcome the ladies to the party then, as a trio of songs sung by females kicks off with Teena Marie, who sings “Lead me on”, with an almost Alan Parsons Project opening that then turns into salsa with congas and marimbas, reminds me of Cher at times. A fast song again, with a great horn section giving it all they've got, but not really my thing. Have to be a little tolerant though, as Marie died in 2010, aged only fifty-four. I can hear strains of another late female singer here too, Laura Branigan. The quality though, which has, to be fair, dipped slightly since “Playing with the boys”, screams right back up to ten with a barrel roll and a swooping dive as the worldwide smash “Take my breath away” slows everything down with the love theme. If you don't know the song I don't know what to tell you: it was number one everywhere and the iconic video for it, showing singer Terri Nunn standing on the wing of a fighter jet is emblazoned into the public consciousness by now. Although not written by them (it was Moroder/Whitlock again) the song became Berlin's biggest ever hit and helped fuel sales of their album “Count three and pray”. People buying it, myself included, were probably nonplussed to find that this is not the sort of music Berlin usually play: they are more a sort of rock/punk thing, though very good. Nevertheless, on the strength of this single an album which would have been totally overlooked made a decent showing in the charts and no doubt gained them some new fans.

Gloria's up next, flyin' the flag for Cuban women as she rattles through “Hot summer nights” with Miami Sound Machine. Yeah, they say that, but let's face it: MSM were really nothing more than a backing band for Gloria Estefan, and when she went solo she did far better than she ever had with them. Nobody asked what happened to the 'Machine: nobody cared. Pretty good really, considering I'm not a big MSM fan, and there is a reasonably rocking beat to it. Kind of Pat Benatar meets Madonna and a catfight ensues. Typical of those eighties soundtrack songs, which of course this is. Good for what it is and better, in my opinion, than her more salsa stuff. Melody's very familiar; wish I could place it. Oh well.

Another sugary ballad now, far inferior to “Take my breath away”, it features that annoying ubiquitous digital piano that most eighties power ballads did, and “Heaven in your eyes” by Loverboy is decent but very derivative. Pretty much any AOR band around this period could have sung this, and it's written by a Vancouver-based songwriting team, Mae Moore and John Dexter. One of several artists who performed, or could have performed on the album, Loverboy had to dispense with the services of keyboardist Doug Johnson, another who felt the message in the film was too gung-ho and glamourised war, which of course it did. Good song though, if nothing terribly special. Time to ramp the power back up then: enough of these ballads and wimp rock! Larry Greene (who he?) gets us back on track with “Through the fire”, which to be fair is pretty much a rewriting of “Danger zone”, with some nice stabbing keyboard chords, though I have to say Greene does a better job on the vocals than did our Kenny on the opener. Bitchin' guitar solo too.

Back to the ladies then as we move towards the end of the (original) album with Marietta, who gives us “Destination unknown”, a decent rocker with nice piano and keys, and a very good vocal indeed. Kind of reminds me of a younger Tina Turner. The closer then is the only instrumental on the album, which is quite a feat for a film soundtrack, and it's Harold Faltermeyer, who wrote Cheap Trick's contribution to the album, with the “Top Gun anthem”. Ably assisted by guitar legend Steve Stevens, it's a powerful but obviously nationalistic tune that utilises a sort of progressive rock feel in the guitar, reminds me a lot of seventies Genesis. Digital piano then joins as the thing powers up and you can just see the F-14s flying off into the Arabian sunset as they leave their carrier and climb up above the gulf, crossing the setting sun as they head for an intercept. Fair stirs the blood, or makes you want to puke, depending on your disposition towards the US Navy really.

TRACKLISTING

1. Danger zone (Kenny Loggins)
2. Mighty wings (Cheap Trick)
3. Playing with the boys (Kenny Loggins)
4. Lead me on (Teena Marie)
5. Take my breath away (Berlin)
6. Hot summer nights (Miami Sound Machine)
7. Heaven in your eyes (Loverboy)
8. Through the fire (Larry Greene)
9. Destination unknown (Marietta)
10. Top Gun anthem (Harold Faltermeyer)

And that's it for the original version. The next one was, as mentioned, released thirteen years later in 1999, and contained five extra tracks, although one was a twelve-inch version of one of the tracks already here, so doesn't really count. While I have nothing at all against any of the tracks, it seems like a pointless squeeze-more-money-out-of-the-fans exercise, as the tracks here are all classics and available on loads of other albums. Otis Redding's superb “(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay” kicks it off, perhaps one of the best “lazy” songs ever, a song you just have to lie back and relax to. It's followed by the only original piece, an instrumental typically, by again Harold Faltermeyer, and while I would certainly not say this is worth the price of the album on its own, it is worth getting. A lovely, acoustic guitar backed by doleful synth creates a melancholic, reflective mood that none of the songs --- even “Take my breath away” --- managed on the original album. Quite stunning in its simplicity and just perfect really. Other than that, you have, for some reason (can't remember if it's in the movie, maybe it is) Jerry Lee Lewis's rock'n'roll classic “Great balls of fire” followed by The Righteous Brothers' “You've lost that lovin' feeling”,which I know was in the movie, and finishing up, for some unknown reason, with a twelve-inch extended remix of “Playing with the boys”, which I'm not going to subject myself to.

However, thin excuse for siphoning cash out of naive music and film fans though this reissue was, the 2006 “Special Deluxe Edition” went one step further, grabbing just about any popular power ballad or AOR hit and justifying its inclusion by slapping the legend “Music from or inspired by” on the album sleeve. I'll admit, there's a wafer-thin relation in each song back to the movie, but songs like “Can't fight this feeling” by REO, “Broken wings” by Mister Mister and “The final countdown” by Europe just seem like they're there to make up the numbers and give the producers a reason to reissue the album in the hope of conning those who had already both versions that this one was something they should have in their collection. No extra tracks that weren't available almost everywhere else, no instrumentals, not even an extended remix. Pure and utter profit-hungry greed.

For the record (hah!) they also crowbarred “Nothing's gonna stop us now” by Starship and “The power of love” by Jenny Rush onto this monstrosity. What any of them have to do directly with the movie is anyone's guess, but if you're going to include them, why not Scorpions' “Rock you like a hurricane”? Wings' “Jet”? fuck it: why not Village People's “In the Navy”? Okay, that's going a bit far, but so is this stretching of the franchise to breaking point. I hope nobody was stupid enough to buy this. I'm sure there were many who did.

But taken as an original recording, the “Top Gun” soundtrack still stands for me as an example of what can be achieved when the record is not crammed with dodgy instrumentals, remixes and soppy love songs. This has just the right balance of all three, and places them pretty much where they should be on the album, which makes it far better and far more effective than perhaps you might have expected it to be. The movie may have sucked balls, but the soundtrack kicks behind!

I still ain't joining the navy though...

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Trollheart

STOP PRESS!
NEW NICKELBACK ALBUM RELEASED!
Watch for a review very soon! Please contain your excitement and do NOT, repeat NOT rush the stage! I said do NOT....

Wise words...

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Unknown Soldier

The Cars song should've been included on the soundtrack, as its probably the best song of the lot with the Cheap Trick one

Btw I just can't imagine Toto doing "Danger Zone" and I never even knew they had been invited to do it either.

Agree it's a great soundtrack to a crap film.

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Oriphiel

Heh. I love how Judas Priest turned down "Top Gun" in favor of "Johnny B. Goode". Real Pete Best moment right there.

Trollheart

Yeah. Total facepalm.

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Trollheart

Yeah, it's that time again. December 1, and twenty-three shopping days to the Big One! As usual, I'll be running some Christmas-themed events across my journals, though this year I'm not going to be pushing myself as hard as I have in previous years. There will be features, certainly, but it won't be anything like as frenetic as Christmas 2013, especially in The Couch Potato. I do have some things planned though, while hopefully carrying on most of my normal non-Christmas stuff.

As we get closer to the Big Day, anyone who wishes to or feels like it is welcome to drop by with a cheery message, a bottle of eggnog (or something stronger!) or even a Bah Humbug! You're all welcome here, just don't trip over the cats as you come in. And wipe your feet please, it takes a lot to keep this place clean. NO! Don't put your boots there! I only just polished --- oh well. Welcome anyway.

Sit yourself down there by the fire. What would you like to drink? Coming right up. Oh look! How nice! You got me a present. How thoughtful and entirely cliche of you! Just put it down there with the others


I just have to write a thank-you note here. Won't be a sec.

Dear Pet_Sounds

Thank you for the present of Tame Impala's “Lonerism”. Unfortunately it seems I may never get into psychedelic music. The vocals on this annoyed me and the constant wankery on the instrumentation doubly so. I know a lot of people rate this album and it has won awards, but it's just not for me. Kudos for being a one-man outfit, but I have to say I did not enjoy it. Perhaps next time a tie or a pair of gloves?

Merry Christmas to you and thanks,
Trollheart

Ah, that Pet_Sounds! Always trying to turn me on to psych! Not gonna happen my friend, but thanks for the thought anyway.


All right then, let's have a drink, shall we? Snow's really coming down hard out there. Did you lock your car? No? Hmm. This is a nice area but even so, you had better just slip out and check it. Don't want to have to go ringing a taxi on this of all days...

(Note: can someone tell me if you see the above note to Pet_Sounds in a different font? I wrote it in one, but I don't know if those who do not have the font can see it as such, or if it all just looks the same. If the latter, can anyone let me know how/if I can achieve that? Thanks.)

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Pet_Sounds

Darn, I thought for sure you'd like that! Oh well, you can't win 'em all. (Actually, I have yet to win one. )

Regarding the font: It looks the same to me, but then again, I'm on my phone, which only detects the standard Arial on here.

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