Ost Philadelphia

Composer Bill Conti's iconic score for Sylvester Stallone's tale of over-the-hill Philadelphia boxer Rocky Balboa ranks as one of the most memorable and instantly recognizable pieces of film music ever applied to celluloid. The first Rocky is still the best, with classic cues like "Going the Distance," "Fanfare for Rocky," the "Final Bell" and "Gonna Fly Now" – the latter was actually a hit single – eschewing the myriad of questionable AOR songs that would end up cluttering future installments.

Who knows what Dave Edmunds was thinking when he agreed to produce and assemble the soundtrack to 1985's Porky's Revenge! It's easier to see the motives of the movie's producers – they were flush with cash after two successful teen-sex comedies set in the '50s, and who would be better to create a new soundtrack of old-time rock & roll than Edmunds, who was not only well-known for his retro-rock, but was riding a wave of popularity after a pair of MTV-friendly Jeff Lynne-produced albums in the mid-'80s. That makes sense. What boggles the mind is that Edmunds, after accepting the job, decided to treat this soundtrack – which, let's remember, is the second sequel to a film best known for a scene of horny teenage boys spying on the girls in a gym shower and for a female character called "Lassie" who howls like a dog during orgasm – as a prestige project, recruiting such superstars as George Harrison, Carl Perkins, Jeff Beck, Willie Nelson, and Robert Plant (performing under the Crawling King Snakes moniker with Phil Collins on drums!), along with the up-and-coming Fabulous Thunderbirds, to record new material for this exploitation film!

Bland, incurious and passionless, this documentary about the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti is like a promotional video licensed by a team of copyright lawyers – and about as challenging as a Three Tenors gig at Wembley stadium. Pavarotti’s glorious voice all but drowns in a 114-minute montage of obsequious syrup…

The Genius of Film Music: Hollywood Blockbusters 1980s to 2000s is the second compilation of film music on the LPO label. It joins LPO0086, which took music from films of the 1960s to 1980s. The two releases form a great set of some of the best film scores of the last 60 years, including well loved classics such as The Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Psycho but also an opportunity to discover some less well known scores.