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Reel Music by the Beatles (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Reel Music
  • Group name: the Beatles
  • Year: 1982
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Capitol Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Scratched into side one of LP: SV-1-12199 G-1
    • Scratched into side two of LP: SV-2-12199 G-1 #3
  • Buy it on Amazon: $88.88

Reel Music by the Beatles

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

This is a compilation of songs from the Beatles’ five movies, of which I’ve only seen one: the Get Back documentary from 2021, which is represented here in its earlier form Let It Be (1970). I do know all of these songs, though.

Here are all of the Beatles records that I’ve reviewed:

What I expected

Just 14 songs from A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine and Let It Be, in chronological order.

What it was actually like

In order most to least excellent, based entirely on the 14 songs contained therein, here is how I rank these five movies:

  1. Help! (1965)
  2. A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
  3. Magical Mystery Tour (1967), Yellow Submarine (1968), Let It Be (1970)

Sorry for the three-way tie. Those really were not among the Beatles’ best efforts.

Within each movie, below is how I rank the individual songs.

Help!

  1. Help!
  2. Ticket To Ride
  3. You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away

I’ve never been able to decide if Help! is the last of the “early Beatles” era or the first of the “middle Beatles” era, but I do consider it to be the beginning of a string of four records (along with Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper) that are collectively my favorites.

A Hard Day’s Night

  1. Can’t Buy Me Love
  2. A Hard Day’s Night
  3. I Should Have Known Better
  4. And I Love Her

And for a different approach to I Should Have Known Better, you must check out the Skatalites’ version.

Magical Mystery Tour

  1. Magical Mystery Tour
  2. I Am the Walrus

Embarrassing.

Yellow Submarine

  1. All You Need Is Love
  2. Yellow Submarine

Embarrassing.

Let It Be

  1. Get Back
  2. Let It Be
  3. The Long and Winding Road

The Long and Winding Road is certainly one of the worst Beatles songs.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

The Muppet Show 2 (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: The Muppet Show 2
  • Group name: Various artists, including Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, Dave Goelz, Louise Gold, Bernadette Peters and Peter Sellers
  • Year: 1978
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Arista Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Scratched into side one of LP: AB-xxx 4192-SA
    • Scratched into side two of LP: AB-4192-SB
  • Buy it on Amazon: $24.95

The Muppet Show 2

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

This is The Muppet Show 2; I reviewed The Muppet Show late last year. It was pretty bad.

In that review, I wrote:

… the Kermit the Frog voice was so awful that I would pay money never to have to hear it again.

Since I’m about to listen to another Muppets record and will almost certainly hear the Kermit the Frog voice again, I hope my audience will appreciate the level of my commitment to this project.

Also, in the interim between reviewing The Muppet Show and The Muppet Show 2, I discovered this incredible artifact: a Muppets version of Kick Out the Jams, attributed to “Muppet City 5.” As a longtime fan of the MC5… wow.

What I expected

More of Kermit the Frog’s voice.

What it was actually like

It was pretty bad, but for people who like infantile sound effects, such as chicken buk-bukking, I guess it would have been pretty good.

Almost every song was a gimmick of some kind, such as Who by “Zelda and Her Singing Owl.” Get it? Who? Ha. Ha.

A particularly nightmarish part was Kermit the Frog’s tap dancing.

There were also various parts that reminded me eerily of A Child’s Garden of Grass: A Pre-Legalization Comedy, which I clearly stated was “not suitable for children.” So that’s concerning.

Peter Sellers, as always, was physically incapable of being unfunny in A Gypsy’s Violin, but that is only insofar as one considers foreign accents to be funny. Ha. Ha.

The Muppets’ version of New York State Of Mind was actually better than Barbra Streisand’s version from a few days ago, which says very little about the Muppets and a whole lot about Barbra Streisand.

On the other hand, their version of For What It’s Worth was absolutely appalling, and everyone involved in it should be… sternly reprimanded. So here is Buffalo Springfield doing it at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and here is another cover version that’s great.

Grade

1/5: horrible enough that I couldn’t make it through

Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture
  • Artist name: Various, including Frankie Valli, John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Frankie Avalon, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway, Cindy Bullens, Sha-Na-Na, Louis St. Louis
  • Year: 1978
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: RSO Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Scratched into side 1 of LP: K-9967 RS-2-4002 AS GD1
    • Scratched into side 2 of LP: K-9970 RS-2-4002 BS GD2
    • Scratched into side 3 of LP: K-9971 RS-2-4002 CS GD1
    • Scratched into side 4 of LP: K-9974 RS-2-4002 DS GD2
  • Buy it on Amazon: $100.00

Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never seen Grease the movie, but I do expect to recognize several of these songs.

What I expected

My first reaction when I saw that this record was next: “Oh. The Grease soundtrack. John Travolta. Great.”

My second reaction was: “Wait a minute, there are actually a lot of Sha Na Na[1] songs on this record. I think it might actually be pretty good.”

My third reaction: “‘Written & Produced by Barry Gibb.’ Oh no.”

What it was actually like

I never really thought of the term “fauxldies” until now to describe Sha Na Na, but a lot of this record was just that. Fortunately, I approve.

The Sha Na Na set was from the end of side two through the end of side three, and here are their songs in order of excellence:

  1. Hound Dog
  2. Blue Moon, which has come up twice recently (The Rodgers and Hart Songbook by Ella Fitzgerald and The Muppet Show)
  3. Rock n’ Roll Is Here to Stay
  4. Those Magic Changes
  5. Born to Hand Jive, which was way too long
  6. Tears on My Pillow

The end of side three and beginning of side four also had more of these “fauxldies,” though generally not as good as Sha Na Na’s. Of them, I liked Mooning, Freddy, My Love and Rock n’ Roll Party Queen the best. We Go Together was also great: kind of pure sugar, and it made me wonder why there is not more music like that. And in a very small way, it reminded me of Shama Lama Ding Dong (which I just learned was covered by John “Cougar” Mellencamp; listen at your own risk).

The disco part of the record was not as extensive as I worried: just the title track Grease and the closing track Grease (Reprise), which were terrible, and You’re the One That I Want, which I recognized, which was nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

The record’s worst song, There Are Worse Things I Could Do, wasn’t disco at al. It was just boring and had an awful saxophone part.

The other two that I recognized were Summer Nights, a sappy duet, and Greased Lightnin’ – another one that I knew and that played with a retro sound – though I appreciated the electric guitar.

Sometimes the “fauxldies” style got really boring and could not be saved by doo wop, such as with Beauty School Dropout and It’s Raining on Prom Night.

And given that it was the late 1970s, of course there was some bad easy listening included as well: Hopelessly Devoted to You and Sandy.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 Stylized as “Sha-Na-Na”

Fame: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Fame: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture
  • Artist name: Various, including Michael Gore, Irene Cara, Paul McCrane, Linda Clifford, Laura Dean
  • Year: 1980
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: RSO Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Scratched into side one of LP: RX-1-3080-AS-PW3
    • Scratched into side two of LP: RX-13080-BS-PW2
  • Buy it on Amazon: $4.89

Fame: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have heard of the movie Fame, but I’ve never seen it, and do not think that I have heard any of the songs from its soundtrack.

What I expected

Maybe show tunes?

What it was actually like

I did actually recognize the chorus to the title track Fame (“I’m gonna live forever…”), a very straightforward and simple techno song.

That was the only song that I would describe just as techno, but the two disco songs, Hot Lunch Jam and Red Light, also had a techno sound to them. I guess by the very late 1970s and early 1980s, techno and disco might not have been all that distinct from each other.

Several others sounded like show tunes to me: Out Here on My Own, which was piano focused and jazzy; Never Alone, which had a gospel style choir; and I Sing the Body Electric.

Is It Okay If I Call You Mine? was in a folk style, and incredibly boring. Ralph and Monty (Dressing Room Piano) was a piano instrumental, but very short.

Dogs in the Yard was easy listening, the most bland thing that could possibly be called a song.

Someone should make a parody of this movie, call it Shame, and just not change any of the music.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

Urban Cowboy soundtrack (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Urban Cowboy: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
  • Artist name: Various artists, including Jimmy Buffett, the Charlie Daniels Band, the Eagles, Dan Fogelberg, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Kenny Rogers and Boz Scaggs
  • Year: 1980
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: Asylum Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $28.09

Urban Cowboy soundtrack

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have heard of the movie Urban Cowboy, but have not seen it. I recognize a bunch of the artists’ names from the soundtrack, but only a few of the song names.

What I expected

Country, country rock.

What it was actually like

Side One

Rock was the dominant sound of this side, but it was definitely country rock.

I liked All Night Long by Joe Walsh the best, as it was more of a hard rock song that had a strong electric blues influence, with a very good guitar riff.

Jimmy Buffett’s Hello Texas was a very solid country rock song, and I liked the honky tonk piano in Nine Tonight by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band.

Dan Fogelberg’s Times Like These was very over-produced, like the worst of 1980s rock, and it sounded like it used a drum machine.

Side Two

This side was more line dancing music than the first.

Mickey Gilley’s version of Stand By Me was kind of sad, and I don’t object at all to reinterpreting this classic song, but I do think that if someone wants to mess with it, then it needs to be really impressive not to be treated as crap, since the original is such a classic.

Cherokee Fiddle by Mickey Gilley had great fiddle and steel guitar solos and a very country sound, but terrible percussion.

I’ve always considered the Eagles Lyin’ Eyes a potentially great country rock song, but I’ve never much cared for the vocals in it – they just felt too smooth, like they did not have enough emotion for the song’s lyrics.

Could I Have This Dance by Anne Murray was country, but really slow and boring.

Side Three

I’m aware that there are people who really like The Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels Band, but I have always found it to be a little bit silly and melodramatic, especially the rhyming couplets and almost spoken vocals.

Lookin’ for Love by Johnny Lee, on the other hand, is one that I’ve always liked, especially the good harmony.

The Gilley’s “Urban Cowboy” Band version of Orange Blossom Special/Hoedown was atrociously turned into Oompa Loompa music for no reason that I can discern, but even though they ruined the song, the fiddle solo was still great[1].

I didn’t care much for Bonnie Raitt’s Don’t It Make Ya Wanna Dance, which was very country and had some good fiddle, but was just not a good song overall, and sounded like it was made for country radio. I felt similarly about Here Comes the Hurt Again by Mickey Gilley, which was too whiny for my taste.

Side Four

I thought that Love the World Away by Kenny Rogers, an easy listening song, would certainly be the worst on the record, but that was until I heard Look What You’ve Done to Me by Boz Scaggs. That was in fact easily the record’s worst song and one of the worst I’ve ever heard. “Easy listening” would not even begin to describe it, but “soporific” does, and if I had been listening on a digital format, there’s a 100% chance that I would have skipped this song after 30 seconds or so.

Falling in Love for the Night by Charlie Daniels Band was weirdly trying for that same Caribbean sound that Loggins and Messina were attempting, and also was not good.

Darlin’ by Bonnie Raitt was much better, and thought that she nailed her version.

I also liked Hearts Against the Wind by Linda Ronstadt and J. D. Souther. It was slow for my taste, but an excellent song, and they did a very nice harmony.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 Just listen to this version instead.