Best Movie

With the huge success recently of music from films, it's a great time for a compilation to round up the mega-hits that have come from, or been used in, films from the 60s onwards. For the first time on a compilation some of the biggest movie hits are brought together. Opening with the epic Whitney Houston blockbuster from ’The Bodyguard’, the first disc also features ‘(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life’ from ‘Dirty Dancing’, ‘Happy’ from ‘Despicable Me 2’, and title track smashes from ‘Ghostbusters’, ‘9 to 5’ and ‘Footloose’. We’ve also included ABBA’s original version of ‘Mamma Mia’ and the fabulous ‘Grease Megamix’ which combines three huge tracks from ‘Grease’.

Show tunes provide a multitude of reference material for the traditional vintage jazz or pop vocalist. Then there are movie themes, more familiar to the general public, especially when they were seen later on a modern invention called television. This collection of 26 tracks features a modicum of jazz, but mainly pop tunes from the Golden Era of the '30s, '40s, and '50s. Big bands are prevalent as the backup groups, sometimes including strings, with little instrumental improvisation and stock charts. Among the most famous of these sentimental journey songs are "Moon River" from Billy May, "Call Me Irresponsible" by Bobby Darin, Dean Martin's slightly sloshed "Baby, It's Cold Outside," and Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa" and his actually hip "The Continental" (two of three Cole selections heard here). There are also two from Johnny Mandel with the Pied Pipers, "Swinging on a Star" by Freddie Slack, a young Nancy Wilson with "Secret Love," and soupier group vocal pieces from the King Sisters, Bob Hope with the Clark Sisters, the Lettermen, the Four Freshmen, and Ray Anthony with the Belvederes on the apropos "Thanks for the Memory." Overall, this is nothing more than a trip down that lane of reminiscence for those familiar with the old dirt road path to grandma's, now a superhighway.

From a veteran culture writer and modern movie expert, a celebration and analysis of the movies of 1999—arguably the most groundbreaking year in American cinematic history.