Customer Reviews

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Radio Sunnydale

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The U.S. edition of Radio Sunnydale is something of a disappointment. Unaccountably, we in the U.K. have a much better version. Granted, it doesn't have Blur or Sarah McLachlan but it has 21 tracks to the U.S. edition's 12. They are:

1. Buffy Main Title Theme - The Breeders
2. Bohemian Like You - The Dandy Warhols
3. Everybody got their something - Nikka Costa
4. Score Season 1 - Chris Beck
5. Key - Devics
6. Sound of the Revolution - Lunatic Calm
7. Ballad For Dead Friends - Dashboard Prophets
8. Blue - Angie Hart
9. Pavlov's Bell - Aimee Mann
10. That Kind of Love - Alison Krauss
11. Sink or Float - Aberdeen
12. Still Life - Patty Medina
13. Blackcat Bone - Laika
14. Just as Nice - Man of the Year
15. I Can't Take My Eyes Off You - Melaine Doane
16. Sun Keeps Shining On Me - Fonda
17. Runaway - Halo Friendies
18. Summerbreeze - Eimilana Torrino
19. Sugar Water - Cibo Matto
20. The Final fight (original Score)
21. Buffy Theme - Nerf Herder

The price is GBP 8.99 plus p & p. So my tip is go to Amazon's UK site at www.amazon.co.uk and order from there!

I like "Radio Sunnydale" better than the original Buffy soundtrack. I don't know if its my taste in music, or what, but I feel that though this album is shorter, the music is better. Four of the songs on the original album were impossible to find and many feel that they were never even featured in the show. This album, however, has songs that were in fact heard in an episode. I listen to a wide variety of music, but I am not a teeny-bopper- at all. I listen to the Beatles and Tori Amos and Led Zeppelin and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So I don't know where people are getting all this stuff about this album being teeny-bopper. Here is my song-by-song review:

1) "Buffy Main Title" by the Breeders- (3/5) This is the only song on this album that I don't really dig. The original version by Nerf Herder is better and can be found on the original soundtrack.

2) "Stop Thinking About It" by Joey Ramone- (5/5) Saying that Joey Ramone is teen pop is an insult to punk music. The Ramones created that genre of music. This song is in the episode "Beneath You". Excellent.

3) "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols- (5/5) This song from "Triangle" is catchy rock and roll. I did not recognize the title, but I have heard the song before.

4) "Everybody Got Their Something" by Nikka Costa- (4/5) This song is in "All the Way". This song is the most pop song on the album, but it is still funky and etheral.

5) "Key" by devics- (5/5) This song is extremely dark and creepy with an amazing guitar riff. "Key" (from "Crush") is one of the darkest songs ever to be heard on this show.

6) "Sound of the Revolution" by Lunatic Calm- (2/5) This is my least favorite song on the album. However, I think a lot of people could really like it. Its dark and has a cool techno feel. From "As You Were".

7) "Ballad for Dead Friends" by Dashboard Prophets- (5/5) This is the oldest song on the album from the second ever episode ("The Harvest"). Cool rock song with a nice feel to it.

8) "Blue" by Angie Hart- (5/5) This beautiful ballad is from the seventh season masterpiece "Conversations with Dead People". Co-written by the show's creator Joss Whedon, this is one of my favorite songs.

9) "Pavlov's Bells" by Aimee Mann- (5/5) From "Sleeper", this song kicks it out! Half rock song, half ballad, this is an excellent song. Very indie.

10) "There's No Other Way" by Blur- (5/5) An excellent song that was featured in "Triangle" this is one of those songs that you can just drive to.

11) "Prayer of Saint Francis" by Sarah McLachlan (5/5) The soaring ballad that closed out the sixth season ("Grave"). This one is such a sad and beautiful song that it makes me tear up.

12) "The Final Fight" (5/5) This epic score is phenominal. Better than the scores on the "Once More, With Feeling" soundtrack. This song is beautiful and powerful and the perfect score to the giant fight at the end of "Chosen".

This album is darker than the original album with better music. But you should also get "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album" and "Once More, With Feeling".

The new Buffy CD would be fine, if it was not dominated by post-grunge-inspired music, which is mostly lacking in originality. Much of what earned the first soundtrack its fame was its choosing of original music that defined Buffy the Vampire Slayer's atmosphere. The fact that the first season's "Ballad for Dead Friends" was not on the first album worked to its advantage, given the lame lyrics. Why this song was chosen for here, however, is an enigma, for they wanted to have songs from the first few episodes, what about those songs in the Bronze in the very first episode? Or the music of Cibo Matto, heard in the first episode of the second season? And the new version of the theme song can induce headaches for its heavy reliance on the electric guitar.

This CD chose too much happy or teenage-angst songs, and ones not easily found in the show. There are a few good songs on here, like Aimee Mann's "Pavlov's Bell" and Sarah McLachlan's "Prayer of Saint Francis," but missing are the dozens of songs used in the series that are more suitable than Joey Ramone or Blur, both of which sound completely alike. If this CD is to represent seasons 5-7, what about all those songs from "Smashed" and "Tabula Rasa?" Buffy's atmosphere was not often up-beat, and rarely did it feel as teeny-bopper as much of this album, shown by Nikka Costa's disco music. The show was, at one time anyway, dark and at the same time humorous. Many of the first album's songs were identifiable and locatable in the series, but these, with few exceptions, are so alike that it is difficult to imagine where in the show they would have fit. But perhaps that is the problem. After Buffy left high school, little time was dedicated to the Bronze, and even less to the performing artists, giving original talents and their music less exposure.

What is needed at this point is another album that pulls more from the earlier seasons and less from the last two, as well as an album dedicated to the real soundtrack of Buffy, the orchestrations. "Final Flight" was a wonderful addition and suitable for the final track, but it stands out as being the only orchestral contribution, a flaw that badly needs fixing. Buffy throughout its entire run had ample music to fill an entire CD. It might be less "trendy" but it would convey the spirit of Buffy more than a collection of random songs slapped together (its writing may have gone downhill at the end, but the music remained top notch). This album feels like the music industry's attempt to capitalize on whatever Buffy fans remain, giving them something quickly produced, in order to make a bit more money. They producers just didn't seem to pay enough attention to this album's selections. There are about five or six songs that make this album worth buying, but it could have been better, given what the seven seasons had to work with.

As a veteran Buffy fan I was surprised to see a new soundtrack released (I had NO clue). It definately came at the right time, with some of us starting to feel lost without a new season to sink our teeth into (pardon the pun).

I have more negative feelings about this soundtrack than positive ones. Firstly there are only 12 songs on the soundtrack compared to the 18 on the original soundtrack (Btvs: The Album). Secondly, many of the songs seem a little too upbeat and really don't embody the tone of the show. For example, even though I like Nikka Costa's "Everybody Got Their Something" and "There's No Other Way" by Blur (among others found on the soundtrack) they were entirely too... poppy.

Some of the can't-miss tracks on the CD include "Blue" by Angie Hart (formerly of Splendid whose song "Charge" appears on the first Buffy soundtrack), "Pavlov's Bells" by Aimee Mann (who actually appeared on the show with her memorable line "I hate playing vampire towns"), "Key" by the devics (who also appeared on the show), and last but CERTAINLY not least "Prayer of Saint Francis" by Sarah McLachlan.

Perhaps it is just that the original soundtrack is one of my favorite CDs because it captures the dark, sometimes sweet, broody nature of the television show. I do like this new soundtrack, and I think it is a must for every fan of the show and its music, but it still leaves something to be desired.

People on here are complaining about this album's lack of dark, melancholy mood. I honestly think though this shows hom much the show as well as it's viewers have grown. When Buffy started, i think (1997, a lot of Alternative Rock was considerably big. However as time progressed so did the shows and their viewers taste of music. I think it just shows the change of style. The only reason this album recieved 4 instead of 5 stars is because the track listing could've been better. I am not saying the one is has now sucks, but there is definite need for change. Perks however are Aimee Mann (horribly statisfying album by the way, it's musical intercourse, pure genius), Sarah Mclachlan, and the song "Ballad For Dead Friends" are all highlights for me! If you like Buffy and the music on the show, you will definitely like this album. The artwork of the booklet is a little funky though. Letters from Joss and others, very few pics :(

After "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album" was released in 1999 fans of Joss Whedon's classic cult television series were hoping for similar albums on a regular basis. After all, with the Bronze one of the standard sets for the series there were always bands playing. Sometimes it was just Oz's band, Dingoes Ate My Baby, but they were really Four Star Mary, and if you paid attention Sean Lennon popped up as a member of Cibo Matto in "When She Was a Bad." Watching Buffy and Xander dance to "Sugar Water, Spoon" was a highpoint of the second season, which end with Sarah McLachlan's haunting "Full of Grace" in the background as Buffy left Sunnydale after killing Angel. Music was an important part of the show, but it was left to fans to find recordings of the various songs by Sprung Monkey, Treble Charger, and Willoughby. When "Once More With Feeling," the soundtrack to the "BtVS" musical episode, came out in 2002, that CD made it a lot easier to sing along to the songs in the car than listening to a videotape of the episode, but it that did not fill the need for another album of songs frmo the show.

Better late than never, comes "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Radio Sunnydale," which provides, as the cover indicates, "music from the TV series" for all those Razorbacks at Sunnydale High School. The album will not be anyone's ideal, although you can understand why Michelle Branch's "Goodbye to You" from "Tabula Rasa" is not included and will just have to admit that there are no complete versions of Anthony Stewart Head singing either "Freebird" or "Behind Blue Eyes" let alone "The Exposition Song" from Season 4 (because this album focuses on seasons 5-7, so there). Fortunately I have my own copy of "Tales of Brave Ulysses" by Cream so I can remember Joyce just like Giles did. The key thing is that the songs here were on the show, except for the cover of the "Buffy Main Title Them" by the Breeders, which is certainly an allowable exception.

The point is this is a walk down memory lane without having to flip through your "BtVS" DVDs. "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols was what was playing when Olaf the Troll smashed up the Bronze in "Traingle" and who can forget Drsuilla and Spike dancing to "Key" by the devics in "Crush." Aimee Mann might hate playing vamp towns, but her "Pavlov's Bell" was a key part of "Sleeper," while "Blue," written by Joss Whedon and singer Angie Hart, was the song that pulled together the four different "Conversations With Dead People." Then there was Sarah McLachlan's "Prayer Of Saint Francis," which served as the final grace note of "Grave." Just like the first soundtrack album, this one ends with some original music in Rob Duncan's "The Final Fight."

Liner notes are proved by both John King, the show's music supervisor, and Whedon, and both evince the importance of music to the show and the care with which songs and artists were picked. With the final season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" now out on DVD it seems unlikely that Mutant Enemy will put together another CD now that Buffy and the Scoobies are securly in syndication, but it would sure be nice. I suppose I will just have to get together with my daughters and put together our own seven volume music retrospective for each season of the show.

I was about to give this album 3 stars when i realised, this soundtrack isn't so bad after all.

Sure the U.K version is better but this album still shows the kind of music buffy had. Yes, a lot of it is grungy but in a magic realism show that's to be expected; there was quite a bit of grunge music throughout the series.

The gem on this album (which the U.K. "Sunnydale Radio" doesn't have) is Sarah Mclachlan's song. No it's not the beautiful "full of grace," that plays at the end of season two as Buffy leaves her hometown bound for L.A. "Prayer for St. Francis" (an equally beautiful track I think) plays at the season 6 finale, just after Buffy and sister Dawn crawl from the grave where they had been fighting dirt demons.
It's good this track was selected over "full of grace" because it comes from a rare c.d. while "full of grace" can be found on Mclachlan's arguably best album (which also has "angel" and "do what you have to do" on it), "Surfacing."

At first when I heard there were two versions of this soundtrack (one which paled in comparison to the other) I thought, 'that sucks for the U.S I hope we get the U.K version here.' Happily we did but I also bought this album off the net and I'm pretty happy with it.

If you're choosing between the two go with the U.K version, but if you're a whacked out fan like me buy em both:D

The UK version has twenty-one cuts, as has been noted before. One of those is a Christophe Beck score (Which score?) and two are different versions of the Buffy theme. It does NOT have Sarah McLauchlin's "Prayer of Saint Francis," but it DOES have Cibo Matto's memorable "Sugar Water," from "When She Was Bad". There are still a lot of songs I would like to hear, notably "I'M THE MISSUS," from season 7, and Sarah McLauchlin's other important number, "Full Of Grace," from "Becoming, Part Two". Maybe on a future album entitled "Buffy's Graveyard of Forgotten Oldies."
Back to the point, though, this album reads like a full priced sampler of the British version. Why?

A couple of years back I reviewed the original "Buffy" soundtrack and gave it a paltry 3.5 stars. Numerous attempts to upgrade that rating later failed. I am stuck with the shame of having sold it short, which was real hypocrisy because it stayed in my car's CD player for about 18 months solid and I almost wore it smooth before I bought this one. Not gonna make that mistake again.

This is a superb album despite the fact that it is only half as long as the UK version and, inexcusably, doesn't have that damned Cibbo Matto song on it any more than the first album did. If & when a US released BTVS volume III comes out FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY (AND UNHOLY IF THAT'S YOUR THING) WOULD YOU PLEASE PUT THAT SONG ON! I WANNA SUGAR, WATER & SPOON TOO. By the way, is that an ode to absinthe?

My favorites on this album:

Joey Ramone, "Stop Thinking About It" -- 'You don't know what you want, but you wan't it.' This is an anthem to the teenage angst of the first four seasons.

Dandy Warhols, "Bohemian Like You" -- know any vegan slackers? This song ridicules them.

Nikki Costa, "Everybody Got Their Something" -- will make you do a funky dance when no one is watching, or if you've had too much beer, even if they are.

Lunatic Calm, "Sound of the Revolution" -- another nice groove.

Dashboard Prophets, "Ballad for Dead Friends" -- lyrical lithium which brought back nostalgia for season one (remember Darla and Luke coming down the darkened alley towards the Bronze in Part II of the pilot with their gamefaces on?) Also a good song to listen to if you're feeling drunk and angry.

"Prayer of Saint Francis" -- the subtle power and beauty of Sarah MacLachlan's voice almost makes you forget that bottle of sleeping pills listening to her music makes you want to swallow. I think this is the downer that ended Season Two.

The big differences between Radio Sunnydale and Buffy: the Album are in the length -- Buffy had 16 songs and this a pathetic twelve, which cost it a star (take that, Whedon!) -- and the tone. The first album had serious Owenositiy (you brood straight for 45 minutes). This is more lighthearted and groovy. But it is way too short.

Now bring on Volume III, which should contain at least 20 songs and some Cibo Matto. 'Cause like the album liner says, "Our show is gone, but our obsession doesn't end."

Granted, you miss out on the Sarah McLachlan tune, but with twice as many tracks, the UK one is a much better deal. The UK version also ended up not costing me much more than this version ordering it on the amazon.co.uk site and having them ship it to the states. It came out to something like $17-18 after shipping and the exchange rate. Still much better. Plus you get Cibo Matto, and lots of other cool stuff that inexplicably didn't make it on to this version. My suggestion is to buy the UK one. The US cover art is cooler, but that's about all it has going for it.