Five for Fighting No. 9 - Roadie, Urban Cowboy, American Anthem, Times Square, Flashdance

I suppose a theme driven month would be kind of cool. This sort of happened by accident, but I had picked up a few recently and figured it was worth jotting down some thoughts. Whether the thoughts were cohesive or not is a matter of opinion but there are a lot of words that have been strung together. Some of it may even make sense. If not, there are pictures.

Soundtracks are really the original mix tapes, and aside from the K-Tel 20 songs in 30 minutes collections, soundtracks could be pretty cool. There would often be a surprise or two buried in grooves. Then all of a sudden you'll find a lot of stuff by artists that were never really on your radar. Music really is like a big sweater. You pull on a thread and all of a sudden you start unravelling all of these pieces you didn't think were connected.

Five For Fighting No. 9 (number 9, number 9 ...)

• Various Artists - Roadie Original Motion Picture Sound Track (1980)
• Various Artists - Urban Cowboy Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1980)
• Various Artists - American Anthem The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1986) 
• Various Artists - The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Times Square (1980) 
• Various Artists - Flashdance Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (1983)
  

Various Artists - Roadie Original Motion Picture Sound Track (1980) A double album full of goodness, and an album I'd never heard until I brought this copy home. I'd always wanted to get this, and it was for one song. Cheap Trick's "Everything Works If You Let It" is pure pop awesomeness. I waited as I figured it would  be on the their 1980 release All Shook Up ... nope. This wouldn't be the first time they'd drop a couple killer tunes to a movie and then pretend they didn't exist. In '81 they put two songs on the Heavy Metal soundtrack, "Reach Out" and "I Must Be Dreamin'" both were pretty awesome. In short I never got this album. So hear I am with a double album worth of nuggets, mostly previously released, but there were some really fun songs here I'd not heard. Alice Cooper's "Road Rats" from his '77 release Lace and Whiskey and then "Pain" from Flush the Fashion from 1980. I have yet to see the movie ... but I will. I'm just about through the first album, and I really enjoyed the first side. Flipping it over, it's a bit of a gear change. Whoever compiled the soundtrack packed in a pretty decent variety of genres, but I'm not a fan of the Teddy Pendergrass, and the Stephen Bishop and Yvonne Elliman track "Your Precious Love" is a swing and miss for me. Yeah, other than the Eddie Rabbit classic "Driving My Life Away" the second side isn't something I won't be playing again.

Ooh, side three opens with a live version of the Styx classic "Crystal Ball" from a 1979 concert. This was a cool version, and the band was at the top of their game. Blondie's "Ring of Fire" is interesting, but no much to be honest. Side three closes out with Alice Cooper's "Pain" which was may have been a new recording - I'll have to do a side by side one day. This version was produced Todd Rundgren, while the one from the album is Roy Thomas Baker ... oh well, like it matters. The final side is pretty fun, with songs by Roy Orbison and Emilylou Harris, a barn burning Jerry Lee Lewis track "I'm a One Woman Man" which is followed by Hank Williams Jr. and the closes out the album with  Asleep At The Wheel. The album did cover a lot of ground, and I'll be honest I probably won't dig it out very often. When I do it'll be for the first side and that killer Cheap Trick song. It's why I bought this in the first place, and everything else was just gravy.

Various Artists - Urban Cowboy Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1980) Here come the '80s baby, disco is dead and cowboys are in. If John Travolta could cement disco into popular culture, imagine what he could do with a big ole belt buckle and a ten gallon hat? Forget dancing, there were mechanical bulls that needed to be broken - and some dancin'. For me Urban Cowboy had one thing going for it - Joe Walsh. I thought "All Night Long" was good fun, but to be honest I never even thought about seeing the movie or picking up the soundtrack back in the day. However I found a copy of the album and for a two record set it was really cheap - and it did have that Joe Walsh song. There were a couple of others that seemed promising. I was curious about the Linda Ronstadt and J.D. Souther collaboration. The rest were names I knew of, but not really anything I wanted to have. Still, there was the Joe Walsh song ...

The first side opens with a pretty fun Jimmy Buffett song that showed me there was more to him than the worn out "Margaritaville" (I will admit that I like that song still - much like I get a weird nostalgic kick out of "Escape" by Rupert Holmes - if you don't recognize the title just think of coconuts). Joe Walsh was also on the first side which was cool, and then closes out with Bob Seger's "Nine Tonight" which was standard Seger. The surprise here was Dan Fogelberg who was actually moving into rock territory. This reminded me a bit of what he'd put out a few years later with "The Language of Love" a song I like enough to buy an entire record for. I may be backing myself into a corner here with this list of bits and pieces as they pop up. I'm going to end up with long running commentary over four sides. So, I'll cut my losses and for the rest of the record(s) just keep my fingers off the keyboard until it's all done. Then I'll condense three sides into a couple of pithy sentences (I'm only assuming pithy because I'm trying to make it through the Kenny Rogers contribution at the moment ... it will likely get better).

All done.

This won't be as pithy as I expected. Yeah, a mixed bag of nuts for sure. Considering this was to be a celebration of the "Urban Cowboy" fad there was a surprisingly number of insipid pop songs sprinkled through the soundtrack. I guess the idea was to have more mass appeal and try to minimize the songs about pick ups, lost dogs and warm beer. Aside from recycling "Lyin' Eyes" and "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" the ratio of decent songs was higher than I expected. I'm still not sure if I like or despise the Anne Murray classic (yeah, it qualifies as a classic) "Could I Have This Dance" but the album was better than I expected - even with the Boz Scaggs ballad.

Considering I got this for one song by Joe Walsh, the surprise that really stood out was "Hearts Against the Wind" by Ronstadt and Souther. Timeless, and beautiful, and wicked mandolin and backing vocals by Ricky Skaggs.

At least the bull riding craze didn't last as long as disc.

Various Artists - American Anthem The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1986) Okay, this is a movie I have never seen, okay maybe I did see it on the movie channel back in the day, but I'm inclined to go back to my original statement. I've never seen this, and have zero desire to see this. I wasn't much of a fan of Duran Duran back in the mid '80s, but I kind of liked the couple of Power Station songs I'd heard on the radio, and I attributed that to guitarist Andy Taylor. Then Andy Taylor dropped a song on the second Miami Vice soundtrack, and it was good. Then I heard "Take it Easy" no, not that one, the other one - by Andy Taylor. Thinking he had a solo album I went looking ... nope, nothing. So I bought the Miami Vice record, and this album. Between those two it was almost half a record worth of tunes. The rest of the stuff I could take or leave. I mean I already had the John Parr album, and the Mr. Mister album, and the songs by INXS and Stevie Nicks were fine and all, but nothing to write home about. The first side closes with a very generic '80s song sung by Graham Nash ... it was produced by Giorgio Moroder, I expected a little more oomph. 

Flipping the record over I'm getting to the reason(s) I bought the record. I'd not heard "Take it Easy" in years, and it has all the swagger of his work with Power Station - mainly because it was more than little in the shadow of "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." Honestly it's a but of a clunky tune, but my goodness I still love it. "Wings of Love" was pretty decent as well with the big gang vocal chorus and his chuggy guitar work. There was a case to be made for Andy Taylor breaking out and have a solid solo career.  His third contribution was an instrumental "Angel Eyes" all of the songs were written by Taylor and former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and the songs were produced by Roy Thomas Baker. Sadly when Andy did finally release his first solo record Thunder in '87 none of the previously released songs were included. Which was unfortunate. It was an okay album for all that, and I did  buy it ... but I was really disappointed. Kind of like Felder not putting "Heavy Metal" on his first solo album. The album closes with two pieces from Alan Silvestri who composed the score, and they were fine for what they were, incidental movie themes. Anyway, Andy was reason enough to get it, and honestly as far as a mid '80s collection of tunes it's a fun listen. 

Various Artists - The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Times Square (1980) Good grief, where did this come from? I'd never heard of this one before. "Hey, this looks cool." says my buddy Olav just before he drops it onto the pile of stuff I'd found.

It did look cool, from The Cure to XTC this was chalk full of amazing acts. I was also curious about the Marcy Levy and Robin Gibb number as it was in the midst of songs by Gary Numan and Talking Heads. Turns out it was a throw away pop song, and the weakest song in the collection. Did I mention this was a double album? I can't imagine the licensing and clearance hoops this must have gone through. Although that was then and a lot of these acts were just starting out and weren't the big deal they are now. 

A number of songs I was familiar with such as "Life During Wartime" by Talking Heads, The Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated" and the Lou Reed classic "Walk on the Wild Side" but there were a lot of songs here that were new to me. Some of them pretty friggin' cool. Robin Johnson, who apparently made her on screen debut in Times Square is featured on a couple of songs. I'll admit that "Your Daughter is One" caught me a little off guard. I know even back in 1980 there was a certain shock value, but now it's kind of jarring. It's punk that's for sure. She even gets to share credits with David Johansen on "Flowers in the City" which must have been a head rush. 

I have no idea if the movie is good or not but the soundtrack was pretty cool.

Various Artists - Flashdance Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (1983) For a dollar I'll pretty much listen to anything ... within reason. There was really only one reason to get this, and that was for the Michael Sembello track "Maniac" which I still love. I even got Michael's album a while back, and although that wasn't the hidden gem I was hoping for, it was decent. I never did see the movie, and have no desire to see it. Irene Cara, delivered "Flashdance ... What a Feeling" and it was huge. I'll be honest I was never a fan. It was okay, and with the passage of time I can hear it and appreciate it - but I never really liked it.  Giorgio Moroder was behind putting this one together, and for a little while there in the '80s he was behind some big albums, Cat People, Metropolis, American Gigolo and even Battlestar Galactica - however, not everything was gold - there was D.C. Cab a movie I actually saw because Mr. T was in it along with the Barbarian Brothers, yeah my standards were nonexistent back then. Back to Flashdance, it's a surprisingly boring album. Although I will say the odd "Seduce Me Tonight" by Cycle V is better than it should be (the only other song by Cycle V is on the Metropolis soundtrack "Blood From a Stone and it's pretty cool too). Kim Carnes also had a track too, which was a paint by numbers ballad, but I like her, always have. The album closes with "Maniac" which is the reward to the listener for making it through the album.