SONY MUSIC 100 YEARS: SOUNDTRACK FOR A CENTURY - MOVIE MUSIC

VARIOUS

Rating:

Original Review: To celebrate 100 years of recorded music, Sony have embarked on what is being touted as "the most ambitious multi-artist historical project ever undertaken by one record company" in an attempt to produce "the most comprehensive collection of recorded music ever assembled". The resulting 26-CD set, entitled Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack for a Century, encompasses every genre of music imaginable, from classical, jazz, folk and blues to pop, rock, country, R&B and everything in between. Without a doubt, this is a mammoth undertaking, and wholehearted praise should be given to Sony for their Herculean attempts at preserving the 20th Century's musical heritage for generations to come. The figures themselves are simply stunning: 547 songs in 10 genres, ranging from John Philip Sousa's 1890 recording of The Washington Post March to 1999 Grammy winners such as Will Smith, Lauryn Hill and Celine Dion.

Of most interest to film music fans will be this 2-CD set, 'Movie Music', which covers the entire duration of music in the cinema, from early music for the silent films of the 1920s through to Aerosmith's big ballad "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" from Armageddon last year. From a purely score fan's point of view, therefore, it is somewhat puzzling and more than a little disheartening to discover that, of all the great film score composers whose talents have graced the silver screen, only six of them are represented on the compilation - Dimitri Tiomkin, Malcolm Arnold, Leonard Bernstein, John Barry, Alan Silvestri and James Horner.

Their original music, from the films Giant, The Bridge On The River Kwai, West Side Story, Dances With Wolves, Forrest Gump and Titanic, has obviously been selected arbitrarily from whatever was lying around in the Sony vaults, and although most of them are all excellent scores in their own right, the exception is the hideous disco version of Barry's John Dunbar Theme from Dances With Wolves, the unparalleled beauty and serenity of which is completely and utterly ruined by the inclusion of an almost sacrilegious synthesised beat.

However, if Sony truly believe that these six enjoyable but historically inconsequential works represent the "definitive" orchestral film scores of the entire century, they are seriously mistaken, and need to go away and re-evaluate their thought processes with regard to the genre. What ever happened to the work of Max Steiner, Erich Korngold, Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman, Miklós Rózsa, Jerome Moross, Bernard Herrmann, Alex North, Elmer Bernstein, Ennio Morricone, Henry Mancini, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith... the list goes on! Perhaps, in hindsight, it would have been far more prudent to have split the movie music CD into two halves - one for songs and musicals and one for scores. In doing so, producers Didier Deutsch and Steven Berkowitz would have not done what they have ended up doing - a complete disservice to the pioneers of orchestral film music.

Instead, the compilation concentrates on popular songs from Hollywood musicals of the thirties, forties and fifties, and the popular crossover hits which features in films and topped the charts as a result of its successes. Early classics like Cliff Edwards "Singin In The Rain", Al Jolson's "You Are Too Beautiful", Schnozzle Durante's familiar "Inka Dinka Doo" and Fred Astaire's lovely performance of Jerome Kern's "The Way You Look Tonight" retain much of their crackly, old-fashioned wind up gramophone charm, although the sound Mae West breathlessly crooning "A Guy What Takes His Time" to a bemused Cary Grant in She Done Him Wrong does occasionally resemble someone groaning in pain. By the time the fifties and sixties arrive, superstars such as Doris Day, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe are lending their not inconsiderable vocal talent to the proceedings, with seminal ballads like "Secret Love" from Calamity Jane and "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" from Let's Make Love.

The watershed for the musical came in 1968, with Mike Nichols' film The Graduate, and the now-legendary "Mrs Robinson" by Simon & Garfunkel. The worldwide success of the soundtrack sounded the death knell of the screen musical, and very nearly the film score, and initiated the phenomenon of spin-off songtracks which is still going strong today. The majority of the rest of the tracks are of this nature, with smash hit singles from Barbra Streisand ("The Way We Were", "Evergreen"), Kenny Loggins ("Footloose") and Berlin ("Take My Breath Away") taking centre stage. To bring us right up to date, the compilation concludes with some of the biggest songs of recent years, including Bruce Springsteen's haunting, Oscar-winning "Streets of Philadelphia", Michael Jackson's sappy "Childhood" from Free Willy 2, Will Smith's jiggy re-working of Patrice Rushen's "For Get Me Nots" for the smash hit sci-fi Men In Black, and of course that song from that film about that boat...

For fans of songtracks, this album is an absolutely essential purchase, and I have to admit that I actually quite enjoyed listening to it - but, for me, the enjoyment was gleaned from my own nostalgic curiosity rather than any particular affinity or appreciation of the music. I enjoy musicals, and enjoy a good pop song as much as the next man, but on the whole I prefer my music without lyrics and with an orchestra as opposed to a synthesiser. Ultimately, this double CD stands a wonderful tribute to the glory of Hollywood's musical tradition, but falls woefully short in its recognition of the contribution made to the musical development of the world by film scores in general.

Track Listing:

DISC ONE

Music for Silent Movies (traditional, performed by Charlie Young) (0:49)
Singin' In The Rain from Hollywood Revue of 1929 (written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, performed by Cliff Edwards) (2:23)
You Are Too Beautiful from Hallelujah, I'm A Bum (written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, performed by Al Jolson) (3:22)
A Guy What Takes His Time from She Done Him Wrong (written by R. Rainger, performed by Mae West) (2:48)
Temptation from Going Hollywood (written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, performed by Bing Crosby) (3:07)
Inka Dinka Doo from Joe Palooka (written by B. Ryan, performed by Jimmy Durante) (3:01)
Rock and Roll from Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (written by S. Clare and R.A. Whiting, performed by The Boswell Sisters) (2:42)
Lullaby of Broadway from Gold Diggers of 1935 (written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, performed by Dick Powell) (3:14)
The Way You Look Tonight from Swing Time (written by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, performed by Fred Astaire) (3:10)
A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening from Higher and Higher (written by J. McHugh and H. Adamson, performed by Frank Sinatra) (3:13)
Secret Love from Calamity Jane (written by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, performed by Doris Day) (3:39)
The Man That Got Away from A Star Is Born (written by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin, performed by Judy Garland) (4:20)
Theme from Giant (Dimitri Tiomkin) (3:12)
March from The Bridge On The River Kwai (Malcolm Arnold/Kenneth Alford) (2:25)
An Affair To Remember from An Affair To Remember (written by Harry Warren, H. Adamson and L. McCarey, performed by Vic Damone) (2:47)
A Certain Smile from A Certain Smile (written by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, performed by Johnny Mathis) (2:46)
My Heart Belongs To Daddy from Let's Make Love (written by Cole Porter, performed by Marilyn Monroe) (5:09)
Overture from West Side Story (Leonard Bernstein) (4:38)
With A Little Bit Of Luck from My Fair Lady (written by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, performed by Stanley Holloway) (3:53)
To Sir With Love from To Sir With Love (written by Michael London and Don Black, performed by Lulu) (2:45)
Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate (written by Paul Simon, performed by Simon & Garfunkel) (4:02)
Ballad of Easy Rider from Easy Rider (written by R. McGuinn, performed by The Byrds) (2:03)
Be from Jonathan Livingston Seagull (written and performed by Neil Diamond) (3:20)
The Way We Were from The Way We Were (written by Marvin Hamlisch, Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman, performed by Barbra Streisand) (3:52)

DISC TWO

Suicide Is Painless from M*A*S*H (written by Johnny Mandel and Robert Altman, performed by The MASH) (2:54)
Knockin' On Heaven's Door from Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (written and performed by Bob Dylan) (2:30)
Evergreen from A Star Is Born (written by Barbra Streisand and Paul Williams, performed by Barbra Streisand) (3:06)
On The Road Again from Honeysuckle Rose (written and performed by Willie Nelson) (2:23)
Tender Years from Eddie and the Cruisers (written by John Cafferty, performed by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band) (4:44)
Footloose from Footloose (written by Kenny Loggins and Dean Pitchford, performed by Kenny Loggins) (3:46)
Take My Breath Away from Top Gun (written by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock, performed by Berlin) (4:12)
It Had To Be You from When Harry Met Sally... (written by I. Jones and G. Kahn, performed by Harry Connick Jr.) (2:38)
John Dunbar Theme from Dances With Wolves (John Barry) (3:41)
State of Love and Trust (written by Eddie Vedder, Mindy McCready and Jon Ament, performed by Pearl Jam) (3:47)
When I Fall In Love from Sleepless In Seattle (written by Earl Heyman and Victor Young, performed by Celine Dion and Clive Griffin) (4:20)
Streets of Philadelphia from Philadelphia (written and performed by Bruce Springsteen) (3:51)
I'm Forrest... Forrest Gump from Forrest Gump (Alan Silvestri) (2:39)
Childhood from Free Willy 2 (written and performed by Michael Jackson) (4:27)
The Sweetest Thing from Love Jones (written by Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, performed by Refugee Camp All-Stars featuring Lauryn Hill) (4:52)
Men In Black from Men In Black (written by Will Smith, Patrice Rushen, Terry McFadden and Fred Washington, performed by Will Smith) (3:45)
I Say A Little Prayer from My Best Friend's Wedding (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, performed by Diana King) (3:34)
Southampton from Titanic (James Horner) (4:00)
My Heart Will Go On from Titanic (written by James Horner and Will Jennings, performed by Celine Dion) (4:40)
I Don't Want To Miss A Thing from Armageddon (written by Diane Warren, performed by Aerosmith) (4:57)

Running Time: 152 minutes 57 seconds

Columbia/Epic/Legacy J2K-65813 (1999)

Composed, conducted, orchestrated and engineered by Far Too Many People To List Here. Digital restorations by Matt Cavaluzzo and Andreas Meyer. Album mastered and mixed by Darcy Proper. Album produced by Didier C. Deutsch and Steve Berkowitz.

Cinemusic Online: Review by Helen San (*****)
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