cdm72's Full Review: Boogie Nights [Original Soundtrack] by Original So...
Some movie soundtracks are so essentially an offshoot of that movie, they can never be played without the movie also running, subconsciously, in your mind. Most of Quentin Tarantino’s soundtracks are like this. No matter how many commercials it’s used on “Misirlou” will always now be synonymous with PULP FICTION. Other soundtracks come from musicals, like GREASE, and are obvious products of the movies what spawned em. Then there are soundtracks that evoke not one frame of any particular motion picture, don’t remind you of any certain scene or character, but are just damn good CDs to put on. The BOOGIE NIGHTS soundtrack is from this latter group.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 movie about the 70s porn industry, starring the just-getting-started-in-this-acting-business Mark Wahlberg as porn superking Dirk Diggler and John C. Reilly as his trusty sidekick--this was around the time Reilly first started showing up in every movie ever made and before he transitioned into the role of Will Ferrell’s wingman--tells a very straightforward story about a serious subject. Let’s face it, porn is usually the object of many a joke from bad mustaches to cheesy music, but BOOGIE NIGHTS showed the serious side of this business--and a business it is and the story never let us forget it. The plot is set mostly in the 1970s and this is where we start talking about the soundtrack.
I love me some 70s tunes, and BOOGIE NIGHTS is packed with them. From The Emotions’ “Best of My Love” with its distinctive handclaps and upbeat horns, we segue right into the beat-driven ode to hot, sweaty sex, “Jungle Fever” by The Chakachas. Song for song BOOGIES NIGHTS is just what I’m looking for in my 70s mix. It’s an incredibly strong collection of very bass and drum-heavy songs, one after another meant to keep you rocking in your seat when you listen to it at work (of course I listen to it at work, it’s my stereo!).
While the soundtrack doesn’t elicit visions of Dirk Diggler humping his way across the LA 70s scene (like I said, it stands very well on its own without the movie having to act as companion piece), it definitely does put you into a particular frame of mind of a funkier time when you could walk to the gas station to grab a pack of smokes for your mother with nothing more than $1.10 and a note pinned to your sleeve. Am I sharing too much?
Melanie’s “Brand New Key” should act as a buffer for all this funky badness, but . . . have you ever really listened to the lyrics? Man, and you thought Prince was suggestive in the 70s!
I know that, when most of these songs came out, I was way too young to appreciate or even in some cases remember them, but at the mature age of 36, there’s something about these songs that just speaks to me. I’ve always felt I was a product of my era and the fact I can’t listen to Walter Egan’s “Magnet and Steel”, Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up (part 1)” or ELO’s “Livin’ Thing” without thinking about our duplex on Angelique (I was 5 and it was summer 1978) just adds to the nostalgia I drown in when listening to BOOGIE NIGHTS. And that wasn’t even a pleasant time in my life, but man the music was so damn cool back then.
Of all my soundtracks--and that’s a LOT, you’ll see--BOOGIE NIGHTS is one I often return to just because the music provides such a great escape from the rush of my daily working life. For some of us, music IS our happy place. BOOGIE NIGHTS is so good, it’s almost impossible to be in a bad mood. I mean, YOU try grumbling and complaining when The Commodores are jamming to “Machine Gun” in your ear, or McFadden and Whitehead are singing about how there “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now”. You can’t do it!
In all fairness, though, BOOGIE NIGHTS is not without its low points. There are three songs on here I think I could lose and not miss--whether that’s because they’re not from the same era as the rest of the album or for some other unexplainable reason, it’s when these songs come on that I can feel that work tension beginning to creep back in. Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” is a damn good song, almost flawless in its pop-ballad goodness, but, well, in 1983 I was a lot more aware of current music and they played the CRAP out of this tune. I do believe some songs, no matter how brilliant, have built-in quotas, and once you’ve reached yours for that song, you just don’t want to hear it anymore.
Second, I’ve never been the biggest Beach Boys fan. I know “God Only Knows” is a very good, sweet love song but the part of me that first heard it when Bowie covered it kind of prefers that version. Plus, when almost every track on the album is a bona fide disco smash, every non-disco song stands out like that sore thumb everyone’s always going on about.
Lastly, Michael Penn’s BOOGIE NIGHTS theme song, “The Big Top”. I just don’t care for it. Too much Danny Elfman in it and if “Sister Christian” and “God Only Knows” don’t fit in with War and the Commodores, “The Big Top” is the Proteus-riddled cousin at the back of the room with the clown wig and accordion telling racist jokes at the top of his lungs. It’s just got to go. It’s just an ugly song.
While one of the strengths of BOOGIE NIGHTS is that you don’t have to be familiar with the movie to enjoy it, there are two tracks which do require a little knowledge of the film. These are actually part of the reason I bought it in the first place. At one point in the story, Wahlberg’s Diggler character decides he needs to be a singer and release an album. So we sit in for a bit while he records a couple demos, one is Stan Bush’s “The Touch” which tickled me to no end being a huge Transformers fan, and the other is titled “Feel the Heat” which Wahlberg and Reilly’s characters are writing. The reason these tracks are worth including is for sheer comic relief because Wahlberg, who has stated the same many times, is NOT a singer. I was doubly pleased to find the entire 5-minute version of “The Touch” is included, hidden at the end of “The Big Top” I have to admit, this is one of the times I’m listening at work and someone walks into my office and I cringe inwardly at the awfulness of what I happen to be listening to. But GOD it’s a good laugh.
In the end, there were two BOOGIE NIGHTS soundtracks. This first one was released in October 1997 while the other followed 3 months later. I’ve never found the second soundtrack anywhere--I could probably order it online, but looking over the track list I’ve already got all the best songs, although Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me (Not to Come)” does make the second album very appealing. But for now, I can be content with my BOOGIE NIGHTS soundtrack, digging all those funky tunes and getting down wit my bad self. I love this soundtrack, and one of the things I love most about it is that even if there’d never been a movie called BOOGIE NIGHTS these songs would exist and they’d still kick all kinds of a** on their own.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
![Boogie Nights [Original Soundtrack] by Original Soundtrack](http://di1.shopping.com/images1/pi/40/7f/f7/2005383289-177x150-0-0.jpg)
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.