Digital Roundup: 2/25/2015
New this week in the Rhino Room at iTunes:
Faze-O, Riding High: They came the funk out of Dayton, Ohio in the late ‘70s, recorded three albums, and then called it a day, but if you’ve got to pick one of their albums to add to your collection, then it’s this one, their debut. Why? First and foremost, it’s because of the title track, an oft-sampled ditty that’s a dance-floor filler in its own right, but the whole album is strong stuff, really.
Sol Kaplan, The Victors – Original Soundtrack Recording: War film aficionados will immediately be familiar with The Victors, which followed a group of American soldiers through Europe during the course of World War II. It’s an all-star cast, to be sure, including Vince Edwards, Albert Finney, George Hamilton, Jeanne Moreau, George Peppard, Elke Sommer, Eli Wallach, and Peter Fonda, who earned a Golden Globe nod for Most Promising Newcomer, but the score by Sol Kaplan – who also scored the 1953 film Titanic, is top-notch, too. (It also doesn’t hurt that Frank Sinatra’s take on “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is included in the mix as well.)
Riot, Fire Down Under: When a band opens their album with a song called “Swords and Tequila,” there’s not any question that you’ve got a balls-to-the-wall listening experience ahead of you, which is exactly what Riot delivers on this, their third album, released back in 1981. And yet when Capitol Records – which had released the band’s previous album, Narita – first heard the album, they dropped the band because the music was “too heavy.” Good thing Elektra felt differently, eh?
Sal’s Birdland, Nude Photos Inside: Ah, the ‘90s: so many bands began during the decade, yet so few survived to see the end of it. Sadly, Sal’s Birdland was one of those casualties. They came from Canada, and they delivered this semi-debut album to the States, which was actually a reworked version of their true debut, So Very Happy, released in their native land the previous year. Unfortunately, the band’s follow-up album was shelved due to concerns that there wasn’t a hit amongst its tracks, which led them to change labels and names and reinvent themselves as Artificial Joy Club, who did score a hit – “Sick and Beautiful” – for Interscope before breaking up in 1999. Anyway, that’s probably more information than you needed, so to make sure our message doesn’t get lost in the shuffle, we’ll reiterate it: Nude Photos Inside is quality ‘90s alt-rock, and it’s in our digital catalog for your listening / purchasing enjoyment.
Morris Stoloff, Fanny – Original Film Soundtrack: Okay, first of all, we should make the purists happy and note that the music from this 1961 film was actually written by Harold Rome, but it’s conducted by Morris Stoloff, and it’s Stoloff’s name that it’s listed under in the catalog. So that’s that clarification made. Otherwise, we’ll just mention that it was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, so if you’ve never heard it and you’re someone who enjoys a good film score, this very much qualifies as a good film score, possibly even a great one.
Various Artists, The Beach: We’ll close things out by fast-forwarding the better part of four decades, to the soundtrack of Danny Boyle’s film about a college student – played by Leonard DiCaprio – who has a less than enjoyable but certainly unforgettable experience when he takes a trip to Thailand and ends up on a tropical island. Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that one-line description, but who cares about the plot when the soundtrack includes tracks by Leftfield, Moby, Underworld, Blur, Faithless, New Order, UNKLE featuring Richard Ashcroft, and Orbital and Angelo Badalamenti?