Meco - Superman and Other Galactic Heroes - 1979 (not available)
Meco returns to the same format as his first record, Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk, by taking a John Williams score and setting it to disco in a long, single-side arrangement.
The entire A side is the 16 and a half minute "Themes from Superman," and, as with "Star Wars," Meco is helped by the mere fact that John Williams had written one of his best scores with a number of distinctive, vivid themes. "Themes from Superman" almost, almost surpasses Meco's "Star Wars" because of the addition of a sweeping orchestra and the great arrangement; Meco and his arranger Harold Wheeler make some of Williams' themes, especially the Krypton theme and "The Flying Sequence" and make them sound like they were meant for disco. But at around the 13-minute mark, the whole thing slows down and we get a rendition of "Can You Read My Mind?" which is very pretty, but which features a reading of the same lines from the movie ("Can you read my mind? Do you know what it is that you do to me?" etc.) that just feel out of place and, it must be said, super-cheesy. It feels like a letdown, although the whole thing ends on a pretty sweep.
(I know a lot of people hate that bit in the actual movie, too, but it never bothered me. However, if you did think it was out of place in the movie, it's even more jarring here. So there you go.)
When side B started and the excessive snare drums came up, it sounded like "Other Galactic Funk" all over again and made me want to immediately stop listening.
Side B, just like the second side of Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk, is filler. They'd have been better off just putting "Star Wars" on the B side and leaving it at that. Meco's filler is terrible. This is split into four tracks: "The Boy Wonder," "The Caped Crusader," "Lord of the Jungle," and "The Amazing Amazon." If only they could have turned "Lord of the Jungle" into something like "The Emerald Archer" or "The Scarlet Speedster," Meco would've done an entire album of DC Comics heroes.
The second side is expendable, with the exception of "Lord of the Jungle," which is like a quiet little soundscape experiment (up until the end when those damn snare drums come back). "The Amazing Amazon" is the worst. Totally drummed up. Why does Meco think snare drums are the instrument of heroism? Cripes.
Grade: C- (if you never flip it over, B+)
A Side: "Themes from Superman" (especially minus the "Can You Read My Mind?" tag)
BlindSide: "Lord of the Jungle"
DownSides: "The Boy Wonder," "The Caped Crusader," "The Amazing Amazon"
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