Radical In A Suit And Tie, A (Premiere Recordings) - Various Artists

Advantages: A historical score on all levels; over 100 minutes of utter splendour
Disadvantages: Sound not as full due to age; the Empire is lacking strong accompaniment

..., with the help of Lionel Newman, was responsible for balancing the orchestra and the orchestrations were by Herbert Spencer. The recording was completed on March 16th, after which the music was edited and sent to the sound mixers at Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood. When Star Wars premiered on May 25, 1977 the music soon made its way around almost every venue. The main theme was transformed into a rather atrocious disco song during the late summer and became the number one song in America for some time. In November Zubin Mehta conducted an entire concert of Star Wars music at the Hollywood Bowl. As for Williams, he received three Grammys in February 1978 and his third Oscar on April 3rd. The original album was also selling like hot-cakes, eventually reaching four million copies, not to mention all the re-recordings that emerged shortly after... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Hear the songs and specially written score again! Sing along!
Disadvantages: Songs separated from the score; you need to program CD player to relive experience.

...: ENCHANTED SUITE ties all the positive themes together with nothing left of Narissa's theme, finishing with "Ever Ever After" ~ this was very expressive and led beautifully into the final (for me) track. Track 5 The Record Version of Carrie Underwood singing EVER EVER AFTER. She added extra material to Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz' song (and has also performed a video version of the song, where she goes from animation to reality, finds her true love, and goes back to the animated world again). ~~ Missing Tracks ~~ There are three tracks credited to the film (listed on IMdB) not included on the OST ~ PART OF YOUR WORLD and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: both of which have music by Alan Menkin and lyrics by Howard Ashman; also PINK ELEPHANTS ON PARADE written by Frank Churchill & Oliver Wallace... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: All his biggest, and best, hits are included...and some of them are among the finest ever released
Disadvantages: Only covers 1978-1983, this CD's link to a TV advertising campaign for a high-profile lager

...Gary Numan, eh? What a tw*t...and he can't even fly his plane, hahaha. Yeah, we've all heard the same rubbish for two decades now. Thankfully, recent years have seen a resurrection of Numan's reputation, if not quite his commercial fortunes. The Premier Hits isn't quite the credible retrospective that his body of work really deserves, being released by Polygram TV and tied-in with a lager commerical campaign at the time that used a remix of Cars (the product being Carling Premier, hence the album's title). It also only covers the years from 1978 to 1983 - arguably his peak in chart terms, but the downside is that many latterday gems are nowhere to be seen. Numan was at the forefront of the synthesizer New Romantic movement that busrt forth from the remnants of punk, along with The Human League and OMD. Like those two seminal bands... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful