Customer Reviews

Rose

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

 

 

The soundtrack for this 1979 film is the most paradoxical album of Bette Midler's career. "The Rose," the album, is arguably the best of Midler's live albums, but the songs are all new and more in the mode of rock 'n' roll ala Janis Joplin than the 1940s boogie woogie and other song types that brought Midler to prominence. As if to underscore the point, "The Rose," the song, plays to Midler's strengths as a vocalist while running counter to all the other songs on the album. It is a beautiful song and there really is a sense in which it is the only true Bette Midler song on the album, because the rest are being sung by Mary Rose Foster, a.k.a. "The Rose," the singer. But overall, the soundtrack is basically the best parts of the film.

With "Midnight in Memphis" Midler proves she could be a pretty great blues signer and "Stay With Me" takes on almost epic proportions as the Rose self-destructs on stage before her hometown audience. The flaw of this album, if you want to call it that, is that these songs are performed in character. You have to pity the person who pickes up this soundtrack without having seen the film and does not understand why Midler's voice goes through some serious deterioration in the final set of tracks. Compare "Stay With Me" with her cover of "When a Man Loves a Woman" and you have a sense of what might have been (or the version on "Divine Madness"). Still, there is something to be said for staying faithful to the film in this regard, which is why it is a pity the concert monologue has been sanitized. Of course, if you have seen the movie then you have to wonder why the tour de force version of Bob Seger's "Fire Down Below," which the Rose does with a bevy of female impersonators, was ommitted from the soundtrack because there is no way it would be considered the least worthy song from the film.

This album was produced by Paul Rothchild, who also did "Pearl," Joplin's final studio album, which certainly explains how Midler manages to capture the Joplin sound during the concerts recorded in the summer of 1978. You have to wonder what sort of demons Rothchild exorcised in putting this album together. The album made it to #12 on the Billboard charts while the the cover of "When a Man Loves a Woman" made it to #35 and then the title song made it to #3 as a single after Midler got her Oscar nomination (how it avoided hitting the top I do not know). In retrospect it seems there was no place for Midler to go but down after her smash film debut, but while she has never had a cinematic success to rival "The Rose," this is the film that put her on the A list of performers, a spot that she still inhabits. Final Note: I always liked "Camellia," the instrumental piece that Steve Hunter wrote as the Rose's introduction music. Like most of the songs on this album, it is one when the images of the film and the music are entwined in my mind.

Bette Midler shows us she can do blood and guts rock and roll on this #12, double platinum smash album! Midler's voice is in the same league as Joplin on this superior rock and roll album. If you love TRUE rock and roll, buy this album. Midler pulls it off perfectly! Trust me when I say. Midler's version of When A Man Loves A Woman is excellent as rock and roll and somehow sounds completely different from a woman's point of view. Stay With Me, a Midler classic, is astonishing. You can feel the pain of the song as Midler takes you for a ride. Sold My Soul to Rock and Roll and Keep On Rockin' will have you screaming along with Midler! You won't be able to help yourself! The album also contains Midler's smash hit The Rose. BUY THIS ALBUM NOW!!!! If you loved this Bette album, you'll love these other Bette albums: Divine Madness soundtrack, No Frills. Support Bette Midler! Buy the album here! Don't buy from an auction or download the songs for free!

Midler fans beware - the title track aside, this not the middle-of-the-road, adult-contemporary pop that the woman has made her trademark over most of her career. It's Memphis-tinged rock-and-blues sung in the persona of the fictional film character. Midler's voice isn't perfectly suited to the material - no one will ever mistake her for Janis Joplin - but she certainly gives it a game go and her performances are ultimately credible and winning. Classic R&B numbers like "When A Man Loves A Woman" and "Stay With Me" not only sidestep the potential for sacrilege and disaster; they manage to be fresh, potent declarations of pain. "Love Me With A Feeling" has a nice bluesy shuffle; other numbers are more straight-forward rock, filtered through Muscle Shoals.

The album's succeeds in no small part due to the able musicians backing Midler. They are more than some ad-hoc Big Brother and the Holding Company; they have the bite and energy of a real band. I'd have liked to see them showcased even more on the record. (They do get a brief instrumental number to themselves.)

And then there's the Big Hit Ballad, which seems to come from another musical universe entirely. It doesn't fit the album at all; it's as if tracks 1-11 are song by The Rose (the character from the movie) and track 12 is sung by Bette Midler (the AC superstar). But at least the version included here is the piano-only track, which I much prefer to the orchestra-backed single version.

Not Janis, but not a knock-off either, this is music to be enjoyed in its own right. You can argue that this isn't "real" rock/blues - it's an actor giving a performance. Maybe so, but at least it's a *good* performance, of good songs.

If Bette Midler ever gets inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame, she can call "the rose" her ticket in. Her performance in this movie, both as an actor and as a singer, reached new heights, and she has probably never been better at either. Blues and rock'n roll suit her so well you have to wonder why she didn't go this route again. High point: her version of "When a man loves a woman" which gives a well known, done-to-death classic a new spin. Midler AC fans will also bask in the light of the main theme. Ignored at the academy awards (although Bette's performance wasn't) the song did win the Golden Globe months before becoming a big radio hit.The soundtrack also earned Bette the Grammy for best female pop performance of 1980.

This is one of my more favorite Bette Midler collections. She was so fabulous in the film and the music reminds me of my youth. I wish more teenagers today would pick up this one and LISTEN!

It is like the rose, because it talks about the hardships of love and the beauty of it as well. But this CD is a cd for anyone who has ever wanted to love and to anyone who loves music that really touches the heart. The beauty of the singer, Bette Midler, is that while hearing her voice, you also hear her soul and you can tell that she has loved and been hurt too. I absoulutly recomend this CD to anyone who loves and wants to be loved.

One of my top ten of all time, this disk rocks, rolls and remembers. Midler sings with heart and soul. Noted most for the ballad "the Rose" - make no mistake this is rock and roll with soul. 5 stars

Bette Midler's voice has an almost shamanic power in her career-making "Rose" based on Janis Joplin's fast and hard life. Raw, potent, and sulty .... enough to put the listener into an altered state. A vocal tribute to the legendary troubled and deeply tormented Texas Rose.

Bette gave her best performance as the Janice Joplin character, demonstrating how well she absorbed the sorrow and the need to touch, be touched and loved by as many people as possible. She gave us a glimpse of her soul with each song as if the woman on the screen knew she would die young and she wanted to leave everything musically in her for all those people who would come later and realize the greatness of her music and the torment in her heart. When she sang The Rose as the credits rolled, and her character had died, she sang it with such a sense of peace, as though at long last she had discovered the love and acceptance that was too often denied while still with us.

This CD is incredibly good. Bette is magnificant and the orchestration is excellent and HOT! I listen to it almost every
night and dance to every song until I about drop over.
It is very emotionally charged and is just like a person is
actually at the Concert.
There should be more than 5 stars for this one.