Customer Reviews

Miami Vice (1984-89 Television Series)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

One of the things that made Miami Vice such and cool and popular show was its use of music within the show. Creating an almost music video like setting, the show incorporated hits of the day along with some airy instrumentals by Jan Hammer. The theme to the show is one of the most instantly recognizable themes in TV history and quite catchy besides. The song was a major hit and went to number one in 1985 and is the last instrumental to reach the top of the charts. The other instrumentals by Mr. Hammer are okay, but they work much better in the context of the show then separately. Glenn Frey contributes two songs, the vividly written "Smuggler's Blues" was previously released on his The Allnighter album and it became the title and basis of an episode in which Mr. Frey guest starred and the airy "You Belong To The City" which was specifically written for the show. The song has that dark, brooding sound that captures the essence of the show. "Vice" by Grandmaster Melle Mel is an old school rap song that is decent and Chaka Khan's "Own The Night" is passable. The one song that fit perfectly and captured the mood of the show is Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight". The deep, moody song is one of Mr. Collins' best. The album was a major hit spending ten weeks at the top of the charts.

Enough has been said about the styles and fashions of this era by previous reviewers relating to Miami Vice...So, I'll cut to the chase and say that I have thoroughly enjoyed this soundtrack throughout the years from it's inception back in 1984 to the present.It has not lost it's freshness in the sense that the music is almost pop/rock classic status to this day ! The soundtrack is one cohesive suite that works with all the various artists and genres compiled...Jan Hammer was to Miami Vice what Vangelis was to Chariots of Fire and other film scores. Glenn Frey's and Phil Collins' and Tina Turner's tracks gave the soundtrack that much needed sophisticated rock edge. Otherwise, the soundtrack would have been just a glitzy synth pop fad project with a couple of dance tunes and a rap track...The other less standout artists do indeed stand out in their own right! Chaka Khan's frenetic and upbeat dance track Own The Night serves as a counterpoint to the other rock edged tracks. Melle Mel's Vice is a sample or intro as to how far the impact rap would later have on the music world for the next decade and beyond...

Tense and intense lifestyles, inner dramas, what would be Miami Vice without its music? We were then in the videoclip days and in the highest manifestation of the eighties in television. For now, Miami Vice may be not more than TV history, but surely was hard to make a good cops show after. Hopefully, in time, the show may be remembered not as a fashion that passed, but as an incredible source of ideas, language, and television pop art. Like it or not, Vice is unique.

And what would be its music without the images? It's impossible to hear "In The Air Tonight" or "Chase" without remembering the dark Daytona Ferrari crossing the Miami streets at night, Crockett and Tubbs with their minds faster than the car, time seems to stop moving. "Evan" and "You Belong to the City" bring us Crockett's conflicts. "Miami Vice" the extended version had an unforgettable videoclip, an edition of episodes making a tiny episode with composer Jan Hammer as a bad guy, and well... he surpasses the heroes. Unfortunatelly this extended version has a remix version not released in CD. Jan's music for the show was a show apart. It surely deserves to be released in CD completely: it's no less important than Don Johnson acting... "The Original Miami Vice Theme" alone shows the Vice world in a minute's glance (despite of being almost imperceptibly different from the original show version). The voice of Tina Turner in "Better Be Good to Me" personalizes Gina, Trudy and their "female cops in hooker's skin" storms. "Flashback" is for Tubbs' grieve, revenge for his brother's death. Those are just some moments of uncountable moments this series made during five years of such real characters in a shocking colored world.

This Cd is a souvenir from Vice... In this show image is sound and sound is story.

As soon as "Miami Vice" was to NBC as "MTV cops," it was clear music was going to be an integral part of the show. Rock composer Jon Hammer's theme became a smash hit and because it was a minute long it was used for several years as the official "timer" song for the NBA's three-point shooting contest. But one of the strengths of the show was the way it could integrate songs into its plots; Phil Collin's "In The Air Tonight" provided the emotional resonance to Sonny Crockett's thoughts about his failed marriage as he drove the streets of Miami in the show's pilot. When Ricardo Tubbs had to gun down the drug lord father of the woman he loved, the show used Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It?" They could not possibly have all of the great songs used to great effect on this disc, and, indeed, they do not even try. But then, most of those songs are available elsewhere. Here you get "Smuggler's Blues" and "You Belong To The City" by Glenn Frey as the standout songs, along with what proves to be an inadequate sampling of Hammer's original music. Still, this soundtrack album does give a true sense of the musical style of the show, although if you never watched "Miami Vice," you cannot fully appreciate this album.

Oh, BlueCross Boss "Blue", your need to appear cutting-edge and "alternative" is more shallow than anything you could ever say about this groundbreaking show and its music. Phil Collins writes for Disney and Pixar now? So-effing-what. The man's in his fifties. What do you want him to do? Slice his chest with glass and sing "I Wanna be your Dog"? What does Glenn Frey know about smuggling? Oh, I don't know - how `bout the metric tons of blow he did in the 70s and 80s? Street cred enough for ya? You are a culture snob. Ain't nothing wrong with left-of-the-dial, but you've got to have balance. So "Vice" isn't up your alley - that doesn't mean you have to take a p--- all over it.

Oh, and by the way, I'll tell you where U2 is. In the episode "Lombard," which wraps up season one, where "Wire" from "The Unforgettable Fire" is featured.

I first got this on LP and listened to it often. I later got it on CD because it is a classic soundtrack and an essential piece for an 80's music collection.

Almost half the tracks on here are instrumental, but all of them are great. Most people probably bought this CD for the first track (The Original Miami Vice Theme). "Miami Vice" is an extended remix of the original theme and is also good. "Evan" and "Flashback" are softer tunes, which are also enjoyable. But so that one doesn't get to relaxed, "Chase" is set between them and this tune really moves.

The vocal tracks are some classic tunes, as a number of them can be found on other CD's. "In the Air Tonight" is one of Phil Collins' best tunes. It was even remade for the new Miami Vice Move soundtrack. "Smuggler's Blues" & "You Belong to the City" speak clearly about the life portrayed in the Miami Vice series.

"Vice" is rap song, which can teach you one of two things. It's either a prerequisite on what you will deal with as a cop or a it's crash-course for the aspiring gangsta. "Own The Night" is a decent song, but not my favorite. I'm not a big fan of Better Be Good To Me, but liking all but 1 track on a CD is probably a rarity for most people, as I know it is for me.

Few soundtracks have lasted the way this one has. It is a must for the 80's music fan.

Captures the early (and unfortunately, the more popular)seasons of "Vice". The Jan Hammer instrumentals are important, as is "In the Air Tonight", indelibly a "Vice" song. Others are a waste. Strongly recommend "Vice" music fans who want it all should go directly to Jan Hammer's "Escape From Television" album (which contains other "Vice" instrumentals, including the all-important "Crockett's Theme")and go episode by episode, compiling other songs, such as Godley & Creme's "Cry", Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms", Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive", etc. The show really hit its zenith, musically and creatively, AFTER ITS POPULARITY WANED.

Had I not been alive and a teenager when Miami Vice was originally on NBC, I'd probably wonder why anyone would bother with this soundtrack album. Many of the songs are available elsewhere, yet in spite of this, this album really stands on it's own in a way. Although very incompletely, it represents the music and feel of the '80s TV show "Miami Vice". "Miami Vice", more than any show I can ever remember before or since that wasn't about music, was very much driven by it's stellar music. The original music by Jan Hammer was it's signature sound, with the theme being a huge hit and used everywhere the entire last half of the '80s. The rest of the music used in the show was always fitting to the moment in the show, and came from many of the biggest names in music at the time. It seemed like everyone that mattered could be heard on Miami Vice, and having a song on the show often meant having it on the radio shortly after. "In The Air Tonight" wasn't a very big hit for Phil Collins when it was originally released in 1981, but in 1985 when it got entensive play on Miami Vice, it finally got the extensive play it deserved on the radio. MTV really hadn't come of age yet, and where I lived in Wyoming, it wasn't even offered by the local cable company. Miami Vice in a strange way filled the music video role for an hour every week. This album in all honesty is a weak representation of the music played weekly on Miami Vice, but before beating it up for that there are two major things to keep in mind. The first is that a complete Miami Vice soundtrack, even for just the first season when this album was released, wouldn't be a mere album, but a very beefy box set that most people simply would not have been able to afford. The other thing to keep in mind is the music licencing involved. This album was released on MCA. Non-MCA artist's labels would have had to approve each track and be be paid for it, which would've been a financial nightmare. Since most of the songs played on the show were available on the artist's own albums, it was to thier advantage NOT to have thier songs on this soundtrack album. I vaguely even remember seeing stickers on a few LPs back then saying something to the effect of "Featuring the hit "insert song Crockett or Tubbs pursued someone to here" as heard on Miami Vice". Keeping all that in mind, the small selection of songs here is pretty damn good. There is enough of a sampling of Jan Hammer's original works to bring about memories of hearing it on the show without boring the people that find instrumentals to be inadequate. "In The Air Tonight" was a show staple, and since it wasn't much of a hit when it was originally released, more people identified it with Miami Vice in 1985 than with Phil Collins's first solo album "Face Value". Same goes for Glenn Frey's "Smuggler's Blues". His album "The Allnighter" wasn't getting that much attention, but when this song became the theme music for the Miami Vice episode of the same name which featured an appearance by the former Eagle, it became an instant hit. "You Belong To The City" Frey actually wrote for the TV show, and since Frey was on MCA, the licencing complications for this album were avoided. It also became one of Frey's biggest solo hits. I don't remember the Chaka Kahn, Tina Turner, or Grandmaster Melle Mel songs being used in the show, which more than anything is probably just an indication of my musical tastes at 15. Even though I don't remember it being in the show, "Vice" is certainly fitting, and the other tracks jump out and scream 1985 mainstream. Listening to this album, much like catching an episode of Miami Vice being shown in syndication, brings back good memories of a much different time. A time when cops could still be the good guys, pop music could still be enjoyed by everyone, and had a place on prime time network television. Considering it's usually budget price, this album is certainly worth picking up if you were around to watch Maimi Vice in 1985, or have become a fan of the show's re-runs.

If someone asks me what my favorite television show was when I was growing up, I don't even need to think twice. "Miami Vice", comes the answer. I remember reading in a magazine review somewhere that the M.V. producers would often pay in excess of ten grand per episode just for original music rights to hits from an endless bevy of formidable talents.
The Original Soundtrack to Miami Vice always gets my blood racing. Hits like Hammer's "Chase" and "Evan" are keystones in creating the entire feel of the show. The music served as an audible form of subtext for what was happening from moment to moment in the characters' lives. While not quite perfect, this album contains a tour de force of hits from the show. My personal favorites are Jan Hammer's evocative pieces. Further strengthening the album's impact are timeless hits, perhaps made more timeless by the show itself. Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" is pure "Vice". The dark mood, the intensity, the intention behind the action are all captured in this one song. I must also give kudos to Glenn Frey, Tina Turner and other artists for their contributions.
For a "five star" album, this soundtrack would have only required minor tweaking. One or two less pop pieces and more Jan Hammer would have fleshed it out to be an incredible testament to the great show it represented. I have put together my own three volumes of the "greatest hits of Miami Vice", pieced together from any number of albums from The Doors (The Doors' album Strange Days was used extensively in the episode "Back In The World" with G. Gordon Liddy), The Who (opening sequence to "Out Where The Buses Don't Run"), Billy Idol, Phil Collins (many episodes) and others. Sadly, one artist's contribution is not paid its due in any of the existing three official volumes of hits from this great 80's cop show. I'm speaking of Peter Gabriel. Hits like "Biko" (Evan) and "Mercy Street" (Walk Alone-?) were as much a part of the show as any of Collins' or Frey's works. This aside, the original score to Miami Vice is a must buy for any enthusiast of the show!! As a last note, I too would love to see a Jan Hammer collection of extended score tracks from Miami Vice make an appearance in my Christmas stocking!! Here's hoping...

When you listen to this CD, it brings back the actual feeling of the 80's, as well as the program itself. The songs are relevant even in today's world. The instrumentals by Jan Hammer are truly masterpieces!