Digital Roundup: 10/1/2014
New this week in the Rhino Room at iTunes:
Amon Düül II, Hijack/Made in Germany: One of the seminal bands of the so-called Krautrock movement of the ‘70s, Amon Düül II never made much of an impact in the States, but at least with Hijack there’s a good excuse: it’s not all that great an album. Still, it does open with a pretty great number (“I Can’t Wait, Pts. 1 & 2”), close with one that’s somewhat silly but still highly entertaining (“Argy the Robot”) and somewhere between the two there’s a enjoyable unique cover of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.” If you’re only going to get one of these two additions to our digital catalog, though, you’ll almost certainly want Made in Germany, one of the best albums of Amon Düül II’s career. You still might not be able to get into it, but if you can’t, then at least you’ll know definitively that Amon Düül II may not be your cup of tea, because it’s unequivocally one of their best.
Francis Lai and Peter Sellers, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: The Bobo: The soundtrack to Peter Sellers’ 1967 film where he plays Juan Bautista, a singer matador who spends much of the time painted blue (you’ll just have to see it for yourself to understand why), was predominantly the work of Francis Lai, probably best known for his soundtrack to Love Story. Sellers takes the vocal on a few tracks – “Girl from Barcelona” and “The Bulls of Salamanca” – but this is mostly Lai’s show. If there’s a best-known track, it’s probably “Imagine,” which plays over the titles.
Johnny Keating, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: Hotel: If you watched TV in the ‘80s, then you probably remember the series Hotel, based on Arthur Hailey’s novel of the same name, but before James Brolin stepped into the role of Peter McDermott, Rod Taylor filled the hotel manager’s shoes for the 1967 film version. Johnny Keating wasn’t really a soundtrack guy for the most part, but he definitely captured just the right jazzy mid-‘60s sound here.
Armando Trovajoli,Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: As films go, you can’t really go wrong with anything starring Sophia Loren circa the early ‘60s, when she was just about the sexiest thing on the silver screen, but the soundtrack to Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is pretty good, too. (This could explain why Trovajoli ended up doing the scores for over 300 films by the time he died in 2013 at the age of 95.)