Customer Reviews

Performance (1970 Film)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of my three favorite soundtrack albums (along with Midnight Cowboy and Harder They Come) and it's one of the scariest sounding albums I know. The music on it is very eclectic, but it all contributes to an atmosphere of menace and dread. I assume Ry Cooder's participation led to him playing on Let It Bleed (ditto for Merry Clayton), and Memo From Turner would certainly fit on that album. Randy Newman's singing on Gone Dead Train is as energetic as I've ever hear him. (A bump 'n' grind version of this song is also on that first great Crazy Horse album.) I wouldn't be surprised if Tangerine Dream learned a thing or two from Nitzche's great orchestrated atmospherics.

Several years ago at a Yoga class, I asked Ry Cooder about the Performance soundtrack, and he merely said "Oh, that Jack Nitzche thing?" Perhaps to many it was just a soundtrack. In contrast, I think it was a watershed piece of work. There is Ry playing his guitar in counterpoint to intense tablas more than 20 years before "A Meeting by the River" and The Last Poets heralding the birth of Rap more than a decade before the word Rap was invented. Some may not be familiar with Buffy Saite-Marrie. I was wild about Buffy when I was in high school and remember seeing her in concert when I was about 15. Unfortunately, she doesn't do much in the way of her affected tremolo vocals on this album, but her mouth bow performance has never been more creative. Randy Newman and Mick Jagger obviously need no introduction, but I have never been able to find out who is playing bass with Mick on this version of "Memo from Turner". Merry Clayton, now known mostly for her work on "Dirty Dancing" was around in 1963 with the Capitol single "It's in his kiss". Jack really gets her to belt it out - although only too briefly - in "Poor White Hound Dog".

Five Stars!! Highly recommended!!

If you were lucky enough to live during this period you will appreciate the versatility of the artists on this album. Personaly, I am constantly looking for off the beaten track type songs like these.It may take a couple of times to pick up the the true mastery of these proven songsters and writers, but it always does with new Stones releases and controversial pieces. The Last Poets, of that period are especially discriptive of their work, which would probably never have been produced by todays standards. This track alone or Memo from Turner is enough to buy the album. Those who know Mary Clayton will like her range and eerie rendition of Performance. 5 stars in my book but I'm a die hard Rolling Stones fan who appreciates underground music of that time. Sincerely, Klife1@aol.com

This album is a true classic. As is the movie "Performance". An audio & visual feast.
1970's London underworld melds with a London guru, (Mr. Jagger) & a man on the run from the "Firm", (James Fox).
This seemingly conventional scenario is influenced by drugs, gender-bending & mind games. The plot is diverse as is the film score.
The London setting is amazingly & unobtrusively enhanced by the American score.
Merry Clayton - a hellish & heavenly sound.
Ry Cooder - at his best.
Buffy Sainte Marie - magic.
And The Lost Poets - maybe the original rappers !!!!
Randy Newman at his early, raunchiest best.
And a few songs from Sir Michael!
All pulled together by Jack Nitzshce.
Watch, listen, get real.
Barbara.

nowadays, soundtracks are tossed together collections of current artists outtakes with some moldy oldies tossed in or covered by tattooed radio boys. soundtrack music was created to support and enhance the movie for which it was created, not just sell records. this is a soundtrack that is totally evocative of the film, which i highly recommend in and of itself. listening to the album will bring back the dark gaudy atmosphere of the movie yet be entertaining on its own. i'll get micks track out of the way first-its a decent tune that mick really throws himself into and his energy makes it a winner. if you're a stones freak, thats enough for you, BUT WAIT THERES MORE!!! ry cooders acoustic bluesy slide, merry claytons wail, the last poets hypnotic rhymes, buffy sainte marie's...well, buffy sainte marie! and a fantastic kickoff track by randy newman. i love this record, and so will you if you have taste.

Wore through the vinyl original long ago. It was fusion before fusion. Lots of punch. Cut 10 is kind of 50's coffe house beat poetry, I've always considered it the embryo of rap. There's never been anything like this soundtrack. So purely innovative that it still towers after all these years!

One of the few soundtracks that stands on its own as an album, you get a wide swath of tunes here, under the keen supervision of Jack Nitzsche. A few slide workouts from Ry Cooder, rap before it was rap by the awesome Last Poets, tripped-out orchestral pieces from Nitzsche himself, some beyond-strange Buffy Sainte-Marie, the incredible voice of Merry Clayton (Poor White Hound Dog, the nightmarish Turner's Murder and Performance) a rocker from Randy Newman, and the centerpiece, Mick Jagger flying solo on Memo From Turner. Buy the album and then buy the movie, they both are worth the purchase price, definitely not one-time listening or viewing.

The movie's in-your-face depiction of the drugs-and-thugs decadence in the London underworld is encapsulated in this soundtrack, which was arranged by Jack Nitzsche and conducted by Randy Newman.

Mick Jagger is in full swagger in Memo From Turner, but there are numerous fantastic performances - Lost Poets, Buffy Sainte-Marie - with blistering bottleneck guitar solos from Ry Cooder and Newman delivering a gem with Gone Dead Train.

This is a perfect merging of music to cinema, as viciously brilliant as it is disturbing.

The stones rarely played Memo From Turner due to their "women troubles" from the film. jagger was sleeping with richards girlfriend on the set, or something to that effect. anyway, memo from turner was released on the album "metamorphasis" in 1976. the intro on the 1976 version is great, but the 1970 version on this album is one of the hottest tracks the stones ever recorded without mic taylor. this song proves to be one of the first music videos ever made as it appears in its entirity in Roeg's film.

The movie and soundtrack, together or separately, form an interesting window to a transitional time in the culture wars (which, as everyone knows, are still raging today). This was when some hippies were headed toward becoming yippies and yuppies, and losing all that "peace and love" stuff that a few of us still cling to, and some of them were descending into total depravity (the first gaping holes were punctured in the fabric of the Flower Power dream in the year before PERFORMANCE was released, with the Manson cult murders and the Altamont Speedway tragedy). There is a sinister atmosphere saturating this flawed but fascinating film, but the soundtrack of PERFORMANCE, infused throughout with the same dark dread, can easily stand on its own. Unlike so many of today's "soundtracks," which are little more than a mix of current pop/rock hits and/or nostalgic oldies, this recording amounts to a cohesive whole. In addition, it features artists like Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, Merry Clayton and Mick Jagger in a framework outside of their usual settings (my opinion comes with the knowledge that most of them have contributed work to other films). Sainte-Marie has been criminally neglected from the beginning, and is still regarded (if at all) as a minor, fringe artist. Not by me (see my reviews of LITTLE WHEEL SPIN & SPIN, ILLUMINATIONS and COINCIDENCE & LIKELY STORIES), and here her mouthbow and shivery, wailing voice is used to wonderfully creepy effect on "Dyed, Dead, Red" and "The Hashishin." If you are a rap fan who has somehow managed to miss The Dead Poets' groundbreaking "Wake Up, Niggers," this is where it all began! Having just said this, I should add that this soundtrack is more than just a curio from the past or frozen museum piece. Give this album a listen straight through (don't skip around), and see if you don't agree that the mood, the sequencing and the artistry of all of the musicians involved makes this one of THE great original soundtrack recordings!

Other reviewers have pointed out the missing performances from the film. While I would not want them chronologically restored, as I think this album should remain as it was, I WOULD like to see a remastered reissue with all of the missing songs put on as bonus tracks at the end. There certainly is room ... maybe one is in the works as I write; I hope so.