Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Listening Post: Meco - Music from Star Trek/Music from The Black Hole

A guest Listening Post by SamuraiFrog, revolving around Meco Monardo, the guy who disco-ized movie scores.



Meco - Music from Star Trek/Music from The Black Hole - 1980 (not available)

And we're back to disco versions of film themes.

Coming after the exquisite album The Empire Strikes Back, this one just feels routine and dull. The A side starts off with "Star Trek Medley," which features the Main Title and Klingon theme from Jerry Goldsmith's score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I appreciate the electric guitars especially, but this one just lingers too long (over 9 minutes) and doesn't ever really dazzle or come alive. It's good in fits and starts. Better is "Love Theme from Star Trek," which is a synth-heavy but pretty rendition of Goldsmith's theme for Ilia from The Motion Picture. The side closes with "Theme from Star Trek," a disco dance version of the Alexander Courage theme from the original TV series. It's just... not good. It goes on and on and on, making 3:16 feel like a half-hour. And what the hell is a rap break doing in there? Suddenly, a voice comes on, much like the droid voices used on Christmas in the Stars, and starts rapping/singing/talking about dancing and Captain Kirk. It's terrible.

The second side doesn't enliven the proceedings at all. "Theme from The Black Hole" sounds too much like another Star Trek piece to really distinguish itself, and doesn't sound a thing like John Barry's theme from the awful Disney movie. Three original themes that just sound science fictiony, I guess, follow: "Clearmotion" (dull, rote disco), "Space Sentry" (sound like a bad outtake from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), and "Meteorites" (the best of a bad bunch, but it's still filler).

Blurgh. There's really not much here that isn't a waste of time.

Grade D-
A Side: "Love Theme from Star Trek"
BlindSide: nothing
DownSides: Everything but "Star Trek Medley"

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