Heavy Metal (1981) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

also "true companion"!!!!! what a soundtrack

reach out and take it!
reach out and t- t- t- take it!

"blue lamp" is one of stevie's best songs ever imo

― the raindrops and drop tops of lived, earned experience (BradNelson),

oh for real -- that guitar hook stayed in my head for weeks when I first heard the track on the boxed set twenty years ago

Realizing now I should've included the Bernstein score as an option for Jon L. It's good stuff as well.

I wanna talk about the movie for a second. This was like my first portal into transgression as a youngster, and one of my earliest super-vivid memories. I was staying at my grandparents' house and getting ready for bed, and my aunt started videotaping this off of HBO for my grandpa to watch later. I was fascinated because, y'know, cartoon, and then that green orb dissolved that dude and I was semi-traumatized and couldn't sleep. But then the next day all of the grown-ups were watching this and banished the kids to another room, which did nothing but arouse our curiosity. Peeking around the corner I saw...graphic violence! Swearing! Boobs! People doing it! Drug use (although I had no idea what I was actually seeing)! All in a cartoon! I distinctly remember feeling concerned that the existence of this thing was probably illegal. But I was fascinated. And because of the music rights issues, it wasn't released on home video for over a decade, so it mostly just existed in my memory until one of the premium movie channels started showing it again in the late '80s/early '90s, and seeing it again was mind-blowing but also resonant on some newer, nascently-pubescent levels (ahem). So the thirty-second snatches of songs from this soundtrack are difficult for me to divorce from the attendant film which was such a deeply formative cultural object (and which I didn't realize until seeing it again as an adult was actually, y'know, a pretty shitty movie). It's like walking into houses you've spent years walking past and barely noticing.

Voted for title track (no, the other title track) because unless we have a poll of "Who's Your Favorite Eagle?", it'll probably be the only time I ever get to vote for Don Felder.

the Felder title track is solid. Henley harmonies!

everlasting twilight, tired of action... "true companion" 4eva

<3 Steve Kahn

I was fascinated because, y'know, cartoon, and then that green orb dissolved that dude and I was semi-traumatized and couldn't sleep

same

I really might have to poll the score separately, if only to have people weigh in on track titles like 'Castrate Him/Searching for Loc Nar'.

it's a shitty movie but bc it's composed of vignettes there are very good parts imo. the world war ii one, is horrifying and beautifully animated, and "taarna" is great moebius fanfic. there was also a cut sequence called "neverwhere land" that iirc is really haunting. i wrote a v long essay about this film that ended up spilling into blue öyster cult's whole imaginos storyline (a lot of parallels in that both kind of try to locate an essential evil in the universe) and it was a real learning experience, mostly in how extensive the den universe is

I do still love the Ploog war zombies vignette, but most of the rest of the movie is so narratively vaporous and kinda badly animated that it's a real tough watch at this point.

'Neverwhere Land' was v cool, though, from what I remember. Have no idea why they cut that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miar5eKG4uY

penderecki would've been a nice addition to the soundtrack lol

The words to “Veteran” were written by the famed science-fiction and fantasy author Michael Moorcock, best known as the creator of the decadent, albino antihero Elric. BÖC had previously worked with Moorcock on the 1980 song “Black Blade”—a reference to Elric’s soul-drinking sword, Stormbringer. And “Veteran” takes its title from the lyrics that Moorcock wrote for another sympathetic band, Hawkwind, whose 1975 album Warrior On The Edge Of Time is based on Moorcock’s concept of the pan-dimensional Eternal Champion, of which Elric is merely a single iteration.

didn't know the Hawkwind connection!!

Realizing now I should've included the Bernstein score as an option for Jon L. It's good stuff as well.

<3

Just threw on the score now in solidarity with thread.

(Of the songtrack, my vote goes to BOC of course)

(Brad N um can we read your HM/Imaginos essay?)

i can't account for its quality but here http://brightwalldarkroom.com/issue-17-1/2016/4/1/after-dark

it's behind a paywall but i think u get 5 free articles before it kicks in

I am also listening to the Bernstein score atm, and I don't think I ever realized before that certain musical elements of this movie that was such a mythic presence in my youth may, on some level, have informed my feelings about Ghostbusters (one of my favorite movies, with a soundtrack and score that I was equally obsessed with as a young'un). They aren't overtly similar scores, but there are some shared strains which are among my earliest aural associations with 'mythic' and 'spooky'.

Actually, I take it back: there are some cues that overtly similar to his Ghostbusters score. Thinking of 'Dana's Theme' specifically, I believe.

yeah i definitely hear a few similarities between Elmer's work on Ghostbusters and Heavy Metal but mainly just in those parts in the former where he plays it straight and goes for that kind of dark wonder vibe. Also of course he has his ondes martenot frolicking in both scores.

I basically group Ghostbusters-Heavy Metal-Black Cauldron together in my mind as these atypically fantastical Bernstein scores. Slipstream from later on kind of fits this mold too.

Brad that piece was fucking cool! I was not really acquainted with your work -- count me as a new fan.

there was that great era from 78-85 or so where tons of composers, some better bred for it than others, got the budget and latitude to try to 'do a star wars' (or in some cases 'do a conan'). I have a special folder for that stuff.

Oh, I forgot that another reason why it's hard to hang with this movie in my post-pubescent years is the weird choice they made to have SCTV folks do so many of the voices. Once it occurred to me that, f'rinstance, John Candy was voicing Den, some of the mystique evaporated somewhat.

(Unrelated, but it reminds me of the Fantastic Four radio dramatizations featuring Lampoon-affiliated folks. Jarring to hear Bill Murray as the Human Torch.)

i bet it plays well in a french dub with english subtitles

There's a short Den/Neverwhere film by Corben from the late 60s. It's very basic and the animation looks more experimental than anything and I think his wife appears in the live action framing part.

'galloping dick' was a prose highlight in brad's piece

Was just thinking about this movie - we've got an injured tom cat in the house who hasn't quite worked out the litter box 100%, which reminded me of the South Park episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GIiOsuDRFk

thank u jon

Played the hell out of this when I was 14. It's uneven and overlong, but the best stuff holds up pretty damn well. My favorites are probably the Devo, Sabbath & Stevie Nicks tracks, and I expect they'll take the poll. Don Felder's "Heavy Metal" is up there, too. BOC's "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" is brilliant, but being so minimal & narrative, it doesn't have a ton of replay value. Cheap Trick's "Reach Out" plays like a top shelf One On One outtake, and that's fine w/ me. Nazareth's "Crazy" and Felder's "All of You" round out the defensible keepers, while Riggs' "Radar Rider" is a longtime guilty pleasure.

I don't know the story in all its details, but I understand that Blue Oyster Cult wrote several unused songs for the film. "Vengeance (The Pact)" and "Heavy Metal: The Black & Silver" wound up on Fire of Unknown Origin, but I've long been curious about what else might lie buried.

And yeah, loved reading your BWDR piece, Brad. Thanks for linking it. If nothing else, it reminds me how fascinating and strange "All of You" seemed when I first heard it.

When you listen to fools...

Very pleasantly surprised that this thread did not die on the vine like I thoroughly expected it to.

"Taarna" segment is so gorgeous. Mob Rules!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

More bands should hire sci-fi writers to pen lyrics

This was one of the first albums I ever owned, when I was eight or so? And years before I ever saw the actual movie, which did not live up to my imagined version based on the sweet gatefold pix. But I really liked Felder's Heavy Metal and coerced some relative into getting it for me as a gift. I remember accidentally playing Mob Rules at 45 rpm and preferring it that way. Maybe the first time I heard Devo. What a weird LP.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Pretty good showing, Fingers!