When you saw the title of this post you thought one of 3 things:
1) Isn’t it a little late to review that soundtrack? (in which case, you don’t know your soundtracks too well)
2) What FBDO Soundtrack? (in which case, you know that one has never been officially released)
3) He’s reviewing that FBDO unofficial soundtrack that’s floating around…. (in which case, we’re on the same (web)page.)
So, somebody got it in their head to finally compile the FBDO soundtrack. Something that many of us children of the 80’s had always wished existed, because it’s one of those rare instances where the music and the movie play so well to one another that they have a symbiotic relationship rarely found in film, but it was never released. I suspect it had something to do with the Star Wars theme used when the garage attendants stole the Ferrari and the use of Twist & Shout by the Beatles. Or maybe it was something else all together…
The unofficial soundtrack here is a great concept. You can feel the thank yous of thousands of fans around the world to this anonymous compiler. But the execution, well, that’s quite another story. Since soundtracks started doing it, the inclusion of actual film dialog in soundtracks went from cool, to expected to annoying and since we’ve landed on annoying, the over use of it here not only feels inauthentic (as that “feature” didn’t really exist on soundtracks to 80’s films), it feels clumsy and distracting. Below is the exact track listing, and you can guess as to what I mean:
1. ”They Bought It” - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Dialog
2. Love Missile F1-11 (Extended Version) - Sigue Sigue Sputnik
3. ”Roll Call” - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Dialog
4. Jeannie (Theme From I Dream of Jeannie) - Hugo Montenegro
5. ”Let My Cameron Go” - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Dialog
6. ”The 1961 Ferrari 250GT California” - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Dialog
7. Oh Yeah - Yello
8. ”What Aren’t We Going to Do Today” - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Dialog
9. Beat City - The Flowerpot Men
10. ”Bueller, Ferris Bueller” - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Dialog
11. Bad - Big Audio Dynamite
12. Star Wars (Main Title) - John Williams
13. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want (Instrumental) - The Dream Academy
14. ”The Parade” - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Dialog
15. Danke Schoen - Wayne Newton
16. Twist and Shout The Beatles
17. Radio People - Zapp
18. I’m Afraid - Blue Room
19. ”Righteous Dude” - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Dialog
Almost half of the soundtrack is poorly edited snippets from the film. Usually, the dialog is meant as a segue - often using the piece of dialog which contains a bit of the next song on the album - so you hear 20 seconds of a song with a bit of dialog over it and then you hear the actual song.
Also, and man, I hate to say this, but some of these songs either just aren’t that good, haven’t aged well or you’ve heard them so many times that you could go the rest of your life without hearing them again. Did we really need the entire Star Wars theme here? The entire I Dream of Jeanie theme? Then there’s the songs that the soundtrack couldn’t live without, like Yello’s “Oh Yeah”, The Beatles “Twist & Shout” & “Love Missile F1-11″ by Sique Sique Sputnik. Yes, these songs are essential to a FBDO soundtrack, but it’s almost an exercise just to sit through them.
The gems on here are “BAD” by Big Audio Dynamite, The Dream Academy’s cover of “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” and “Danke Schoen” by Wayne Newton. The rest are bands who couldn’t hit one-hit-wonder status and probably for good reason. The omission of “Rotating Head” by The English Beat is a grave injustice.
Possibly the real reason this soundtrack never came out is because it would’ve been a great single or possibly EP, but that would be stretching it. When applied to the movie, these songs are perfect but again, we go back to the symbiotic relationship: the film needs the music to function and the music needs the film to function.
Because this is an unofficial soundtrack, there’s no official source to acquire it through. Happy hunting.
3 Comments »
man, someone has a lot of time on their hands, compiling a shitty soundtrack to an old-ass movie, and then being too lazy or apathetic to even release it.
translation: i understand the work ethic completely.
Movie soundtracks from movies with \’popular music\’ are almost always ankle biters. High Fidelity? I was excited for that soundtrack, and it was a total toliet flusher.
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Comment by Sam E. — September 22, 2006 @ 2:53 pm
Heh…as funny as I think he is, any time you’re listing a song by Wayne Newton as one of the highlights, you know something’s wrong.