SIDE 1.
FOOTLOOSE (Kenny Loggins)
LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE BOY (Deniece Williams)
ALMOST PARADISE (Mike Reno and Anne Wilson of Loverboy/Heart respectively)
HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO (Bonnie Tyler)
SIDE 2.
DANCING IN THE STREETS (Shalamar)
I'M FREE (HEAVEN HELPS THE MAN) (Kenny Loggins)
SOMEBODY'S EYES (Karla Bonoff)
THE GIRL GETS AROUND (Sammy Hagar)
NEVER (Moving Pictures)
Before six degrees of Kevin Bacon, before coke-addled Chris Penn ballooned and then passed away came the 1908's dancing-oppressed small-town story Footloose. Released when I was only a wee tot, I grew up with this soundtrack and the movie. I am not sure as an adult if this movie is any good or not, but I certainly remember them both fondly.
Full of excellent 80's dancing hits, this soundtrack is great, perhaps missing only Pat Benetar's 'Love is a Battlefield'. Listening to this record provided great dancing opportunity for my daughter and me.
The first five songs on this album are the best of the lot. They remind me that although the 80's provided a lot of lackluster music in my opinion. However, the 80's offered talented singers and guitarists that didn't have the luxury of auto-tune and multi-layered tracks. The result was that the songs were able to be reproduced live without pumping extra tracks through the house speakers or adding terrible effects to the vocals. It was a glory time for stadium music and even better, there was no Nickelback.
I was a teenager when Footloose came out and although I liked the movie, I was more into hard rock music at that time so I didn't really pay attention to the soundtrack. A few years ago I worked on a version of the musical theatre production of Footloose and was surprised how many of the songs I knew and actually really like. I'm Free is probably my favourite now.
ReplyDelete