Hair (original Soundtrack Recording)

Happily, it is not the responsibility of this review to address in detail the train wreck that was the 1979 film adaptation of the stage musical Hair. A complete misfire conceived by a screenwriter, Michael Weller, and a director, Czech expatriate Milos Forman, who did not seem to have the slightest familiarity with hippies, the '60s, America, or even Broadway, the movie was miscast with supposedly bankable young film stars of the day (Treat Williams, John Savage, Beverly d'Angelo), and the essentially plotless libretto of the stage version was replaced by a contrived Hollywood script in a textbook example of how not to do an adaptation.

Happily, it is not the responsibility of this review to address in detail the train wreck that was the 1979 film adaptation of the stage musical Hair. A complete misfire conceived by a screenwriter, Michael Weller, and a director, Czech expatriate Milos Forman, who did not seem to have the slightest familiarity with hippies, the '60s, America, or even Broadway, the movie was miscast with supposedly bankable young film stars of the day (Treat Williams, John Savage, Beverly d'Angelo), and the essentially plotless libretto of the stage version was replaced by a contrived Hollywood script in a textbook example of how not to do an adaptation.

While this soundtrack is arguably most notable for introducing Middle America to Blondie, there is also some interesting incidental music written by legendary producer Giorgio Moroder and performed by Harold Faltermeyer and Keith Forsey – the latter of which may be familiar to some as percussionist for the German prog/art rock collective Amon Düül…

Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement. The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy. The musical broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of "rock musical", using a racially integrated cast, and inviting the audience onstage for a "Be-In" finale.

On Deadly Ground suffers without the orchestral firepower customary to Basil Poledouris' most memorable action scores, but its quirks – most notably the addition of Inuit throat singers Qaunaq Mikkigak and Timangiak Petaulassie – rescue the music from complete forgettability. Because Poledouris' action efforts operate in such bold, grandiose strokes, their impact is dulled in the hands of the smaller-sized orchestra employed here (presumably to compensate for the additional costs of star/director Steven Seagal's hair plugs). Still, the composer excels at evoking the narrative's emphasis on Alaskan ecological hazards and native mysticism, installing vocals and celestial electronics to capture the otherness of life in the Last Frontier.