Heavy Metal - Music from the Motion Picture

Heavy Metal is one of my favourite soundtrack albums ever. True, not every song is a winner, but boy howdy the hit to miss ratio here is Hall of Fame worthy. The opening sequence when the Corvette drops from the Space Shuttle to Riggs "Radar Rider" blew my mind. It still absolutely boggles the brain that Riggs did not include the songs they contributed to the soundtrack on their debut and only album - oh what should have been. Then again, a lot of the songs here were only available on the soundtrack - both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good for me since I own the soundtrack, but after buying several albums by the featured artists, I was hoping some of those songs would appear there too. Unfortunately, they didn’t.

I digress. 

Heavy Metal (the movie) showed a lot of boobies, and I spent a fair bit of time channelling my inner Den ... "Oh boobies." One vignette after another were loosely braided into an overarching story that was cool but didn't make any sense, and still doesn't but whatever. It was Heavy Metal and frankly I don't think it was supposed to make sense. It was a feast for the senses. Sure, some of the segments were better than others, but to my teenage brain it was all so cool. Having some of the guys from SCTV show up, as well as Harold Ramis to provide voices was icing on the cake. This was a Canadian movie, take that you knob.

Right after seeing the movie I went out and bought the soundtrack ... but I bought it on cassette. At the time I was so sick and tired of the pops and clicks I vowed to replace all my records with cassettes. Then I saw how much it was going to cost and figured I'd just by new stuff on cassette ... and I did, but not for long - I got this and I think a Chuck Girard album (Glow in the Dark). I quickly realized they sucked and made it really hard to make a mix tape as I only had one cassette deck. So I went back to records. The upshot being that I never got this one on vinyl. I did snap up the CD when it was released in the mid '90s which to me was like reliving my youth. 

Over the years the movie would pop up on TV on the movie channels and I've probably seen it a dozen times or more, and it never makes sense, but I love it anyway. The music was as integral part of the movie. It was almost symbiotic, however the music also stood on its own. It's a trick Twisted Sister was never able to manage for me ... loved the videos, couldn't listen to the music on it's own. I worry that Angine de Poitrine are boxing themselves into a similar corner. Anyway, I digress yet again.

When I started listening to records again I had a list of albums I wanted ... not necessarily needed and near the top of the list was Heavy Metal. My wife saw this coming when I first pulled the turntable out of storage to set up in the basement. She looked at the small shelf of about a hundred records and said sternly, "You will not start collecting records!" I nodded and crossed my fingers, then crossed my heart.

It took a few years but as you can tell I did find a copy. A while back the wife and I were in Victoria, BC and I mentioned to her I'd found a little online shop that had a copy and I had arranged a meet up. So on a rainy wet Sunday afternoon I set my GPS and found a rather secluded storage locker on the outskirts of town and a guy pulled up in a pick up and handed me my package in a brown wrapper. Apparently the copy I have is the European pressing from Holland. I wonder how it made it all the way back home. I've been playing it occasionally for a couple of years and each time it's like I'm transported back in time. I figured it was time to sit down and bang out a meanderamble.

Listening to the records compared to the cassette or CD is a little different. When I listened to the cassette I almost always listened to both sides, but found myself losing interest near the end. I didn't really care for the last couple of songs. The CD was more fun, you could shuffle it. The record though, this is new to me. Two platters, four songs a side totalling 16 songs. It's weird after all of the intervening decades, I like the same songs, and am still irritated by the same ones I was back when I was a teenager.

Since I'm wasting time anyway I'm going to dig deeper into this one ... mainly because I can and I have a large coffee so I'm good to go. First thing to note is that Irving Azoff was the executive producer and along with Howard Kaufman & Bob Destocki compiled the soundtrack. It must have been a licensing nightmare to secure everything for the theatrical release, let alone the subsequent home releases which took years and years to finally get in order.

Here we go. You may as well sit, this could take a while ...

Side One

• "Heavy Metal" Sammy Hagar opens up the album with a hard rocking clunker. Oh I love it now, and even back in the day I really liked it ... but it just seemed to lurch along like a spastic zombie. Sammy would re-record the song for Standing Hampton. Roy Thomas Baker produced this version and it has more raw energy and more guitars.
• "Heartbeat" one of two songs by Riggs that absolutely rocked. This was a wonderful pairing with the opening track. It was also produced by Roy Thomas Baker, a name that pops up over and over throughout the two records.
• "Working in the Coal Mine" Devo baby. Having pushed themselves into the mainstream a year earlier with "Whip It" their cover of the old Lee Dorsey hit was awesome. How was this heavy metal? It wasn't and it didn't matter. Who'd a thunk the guys who recorded "Mongoloid" would one day skirt the edges of commercial success?
• "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" written by Eric Bloom and Michael Moorcock performed by Blue Oyster Cult. This was a couple of years before I got into my Moorcock phase getting my hands on pretty much anything with his name on it. Up to this point I was only really aware of "Don't Fear the Reaper" and that was sung by guitarist Buck Dharma. I really like this one. It was produced by veteran British producer Martin Birch.

Side Two

• "Reach Out" Cheap Trick seemed to be dropping a lot of standalone tracks to soundtracks around this time. A year earlier they dropped arguably one of their best songs on the Roadie Soundtrack, "Everything Works If You Let It" that was produced by George Martin. "Reach Out" was a very new wave tinged rocker that featured Robin Zander at this most thunderous. The track was produced by Roy Thomas Baker, and engineered by Ian Taylor. Judging by the credits I suspect the songs produced by Roy were all recorded at Cherokee Recording Studios specifically for the soundtrack.
• "Heavy Metal (Takin' a Ride)" This to me is the centrepiece of the entire soundtrack, and one of the best songs Don Felder ever wrote. Yes I know he wrote the music that became "Hotel California" but this one was ALL DON. He wrote it, and produced it and actually sang lead on it and sounded great. It certainly didn't hurt having Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit provide back vocals. Apparently the song was a work in progress during the Long Run sessions that was never completed. Regardless, this song was awesome ... and for whatever reason when Don Felder dropped Airborne a couple of years later the songs from Heavy Metal were absent.
• "True Companion" by Donald Fagen came out a year before he released his first solo album The Nightfly. At the time this was a bit of a conundrum for me as I didn't know a lot about Steely Dan. There was something really cool about this one.
• "Crazy (A Suitable Case for Treatment)" Nazareth. At the time this song seemed like an odd duck. Dan McCafferty still had the voice, but the music didn't feel familiar. Which is odd for me to write as honestly other than a few songs I heard on the radio and hearing stuff at my cousins I didn't know a whole lot about the band, so it's kind of a presumptuous statement to make. From what I can tell this was recorded for the soundtrack. Nice.

Side Three

• "Radar Rider" Riggs. Holy shit balls! This right here is almost worth the cost of the album. I mean goodness gravy this was glorious. Another song I'm pretty sure was recorded specifically for the soundtrack. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker, and engineered by Ian Taylor at Cherokee Studios.
• "Open Arms" Journey ... I know there are people who absolutely adore this one. You have to remember Journey wasn't the Journey we remember at this point. They were on the cusp, but were just one of many good bands vying for a top spot. The year before The Caddyshack Soundtrack had "Anyway You Want It" (killer song) but it too was an album cut. Let's be honest, "Only Solutions" from Tron was, well ... um, interesting. However they put "Ask the Lonely" on the Two of a Kind Soundtrack. Yeah, I never saw it, but I had the soundtrack, that was a banger. Still, "Open Arms" was a turd. You're allowed to disagree.
• "Queen Bee" Grand Funk Railroad, with the Railroad back in the name. Mark Farner penned this one, and frankly by '81 Grand Funk Railroad were irrelevant dinosaurs. Yes, I could have lumped Nazareth in the fossil pile, but they still had some tread on the tires. The last time I could recall hearing anything by them was "The Locomotion" which in kid years was an eternity. Oddly I really like this one.
• "I Must Be Dreamin'" Cheap Trick offered up another killer track. This one is so good. This may not have fit on a studio album stylistically, but man the guys were able to stretch out and try some cool stuff. This song is all over the place in a good way. This would be the last of the Roy Thomas Baker produced songs on the soundtrack.

Side Four

• "The Mob Rules" Black Sabbath, the Ronnie Jame Dio years. This one was also produced by Martin Birch. I remember seeing the album this came from and the store had clipped a review and taped it to the record. Man, you think critics went after TOTO, the review was short and more or less repeated the word sucks over and over. No redeeming qualities was the verdict. I actually kind of liked this one and I thought Ronnie killed it. I had no idea who he was other than I'd seen his name in the credits of Kerry Livgren's Seeds of Change album at my friend Gerry's house. 
• "All of You" the second Don Felder song here, and it was a cool slow burn. Don has a really limited range, but man he stayed in his lane and the guitar work here was so tasty. Mickey Thomas provided backing vocals. One of the standout tracks on the soundtrack.
• "Prefabricated" Trust were a French hard rock band. The original version "Préfabriqués" was released in '79 and the Jimmy Pursey is credited for the English version that appears here. The opening riff is so good, but there's something about the hard rock punk fusion here along with Bernard Bonvoisin's vocals that just never worked for me. I'm sure there are people who love this, and for good reason. It has all the hallmarks of being a banger ... but to my ears it was always a misfire and one of the songs I had no issue skipping.
• "Blue Lamp" or as I often thought of it "Blue Flame" is apparently one of those rare Stevie Nicks tracks her fans loved. To me the only cool thing about this is that Davey Johnstone, Elton John's longtime guitarist played on the record and honestly he didn't have a lot to do, but I thought it was cool seeing his name in the credits. You either like Stevie Nicks, or you don't. There's not a lot of middle ground. I like a couple of her songs, but she's always irritated me. Which is on me, not you. Still, it's part of the soundtrack, and it ain't over until she finishes her song.

Heavy Metal was a pretty ambitious compilation, and no wonder the licensing was such a pain to unravel in later years. I've been playing this over and over the last couple of days and I suspect I'm going to watch the movie again. I just saw it a couple of months ago ... and no, it still felt like a patchwork of shoehorned vignettes that gave the appearance of fitting together. Dagnabbit it was awesome. Who knows, maybe this time it'll make sense.

If not, I'll listen to the soundtrack. 

Take a ride indeed.