Sing (original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The album accompanies Questlove’s directorial debut documentary Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). Like the documentary, most of the audio recordings that were recorded during the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival have not been heard for over 50 years, keeping this incredible event in America’s history lost - until now. The Summer of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is a joyous musical celebration and the rediscovery of a nearly erased historical event that celebrated Black culture, pride and unity. For the album, Questlove carefully selected 17 live renditions of jazz, blues, R&B, Latin, and soul classics performed over the course of The Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969 as chronicled by the film.

The late-'60s film starring Marianne Faithfull and Alain Delon has a cult reputation, if only because it's one of Faithfull's few film appearances (and has rarely been seen, especially in the U.S.). The soundtrack has enough of a groovy late-'60s period feel to merit a cult reputation of its own, with its bordering-on-bizarre mix of solid '60s Hammond organ grooves, soothing quasi-classical interludes, lush '60s Europop along the lines of the theme from A Man and a Woman, and brief flashes of psychedelia and avant-gardisms. (Faithfull fans be cautioned: Marianne does not sing on the soundtrack at all.) The recurring motifs are quite insinuating, and treated with a number of imaginative arrangements, making this a pretty interesting find for fans of '60s Euro easy listening/pop hybrids, even if they're not interested in having a souvenir of the film. The CD reissue does the job right by adding good liner notes and three bonus cuts by vocalists Mireille Mathieu and Cleo Laine, who recorded these tracks after Les Reed added lyrics to three instrumental pieces from the film.

Hudson Hawk was an action-comedy vehicle for a post-Die Hard Bruce Willis, directed by Michael Lehmann. Willis plays Eddie Hawkins, a master thief who, on the day of his parole from prison, suddenly finds himself blackmailed into committing a series of elaborate heists. The complicated plot involves the Italian Mafia, an evil international conglomerate, the artwork of Leonardo da Vinci, and a machine that turns lead into gold, but it’s really just an excuse for Willis and his co-star Danny Aiello to engage in various globe-trotting escapades of comic tomfoolery. The film co-stars Andie MacDowell, James Coburn, and Richard E. Grant, and unfortunately was an enormous box-office flop; audiences seemingly couldn’t reconcile Willis’s tough guy persona with the film’s slapstick comedy action, bizarre sound effects, and surreal humor. Musically, Hudson Hawk is an enjoyable oddity. One of the conceits in the story is that the characters played by Willis and Aiello often spontaneously burst into song, as a way to synchronize the timing of their heists. The pair sing several tracks, two of which – Bing Crosby’s “Swinging on a Star” from Going My Way (which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1944), and Paul Anka’s “Side by Side” – are featured on the film’s soundtrack.

Country singers rule this soundtrack of Elvis Presley covers, which is every bit as flawed, frivolous and fun as the film from whence it came. While Billy Joel parodies "All Shook Up" and "Heartbreak Hotel," John Mellencamp labors to avoid parodying "Jailhouse Rock," and U2's Bono transforms "Can't Help Falling in Love" into an obsessive parable about hero worship, folks like Ricky Van Shelton and Trisha Yearwood just sit back and sing the things, which at least makes them pleasant after more than one plaing. Dwight Yoakam's power-chord-country version of "Suspicious Minds" and Travis Tritt's "Burning Love" rank with their best remakes. Breaking the trend are pop crooner Bryan Ferry, who sings a seductive British soul version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" and the usually trustworthy Vince Gill, whose Pat Boone-style rendition of Arthur Crudup's classic blues "That's All Right" cleans up the grammar.

Faith Akin's 2009 comedy Soul Kitchen followed the adventures of a handful of eccentrics and bohemians who operate and patronize a rundown eatery in Germany, and true to the title the film's soundtrack album features plenty of classic soul and R&B tracks, as well as selections from the movie's original score. Soul Kitchen includes numbers by Al Green, Ruth Brown, the Isley Brothers, Dyke & the Blazers, Quincy Jones, and others; the collection also includes vintage reggae from Burning Spear and contemporary German techno and dance music by Deichkind and Solomun & H.O.S.H.