Customer Reviews

Three O'Clock High: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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

 

 

Shortly after the return from the concert tour promoting the latest studio album, "Underwater Sunlight", the band, in a completely new shape, sat down to fulfill the contractual obligations with respect to soundtrack scores. Indeed, there was so much work, that the musicians worked steadily, every day, for the next twelve months, much like any ordinary guys - as if they were not the musicians, the artists, but the paid craftsmen. The output of this cinematic era is quite uneven, but due to their enormous experience, most of what was released, is of very good quality, and innovative, too.

The first set of soundtracks resemble the style developed on "Underwater Sunlight" - this certainly is true in the case of "Three O'Clock High" and "Near Dark". Whereas the instrumentarium is and overall tone similar, these scores are much darker, much more thrilling, and never as sweet as the mother studio album was. Both albums feature short compositions ("Near Dark" slightly longer and more developed), filled with the aggressiveness of Edgar Froese's guitar, and with the equally aggressive percussive and complicated rhythms of Chris Franke. What distinguishes these two albums of Tangerine Dream from any other work from their heritage is the overwhelming presence of rich orchestral arrangements, which add the nocturnal symphonic layer to their otherwise interesting work. What a pity that this direction was not continued. it must not have pleased Edgar Froese, who never had a penchant for the orchestra, not Paul Haslinger, who is virtually nonexistent on these two albums. Indeed, "Three O'Clock High" and "Near Dark" are the children of Christopher Franke. After the mad production cycle was over for him - he left the band in 1987 - he started to search for new directions in electronic music from 1990 on. I must admit that I am very, very happy because Chris seems to have expanded the inspirations the traces of which are present on "Three O'Clock High" and "Near Dark". There was a multitude of roads he might have taken, and in my opinion, there was no better path than the orchestration of the electronic. If you are interested in these two Tangerine Dream albums from late 1986, you will be happy with almost anything that is signed by Christopher Franke solo, with the help of his own Berlin Symphonic Film Orchestra.

"Three O'Clock High" disc also features a substantial portion of music by Sylvester Levay, a talented composer, who nevertheless did not develop his interests in electronica in later years. As it is, the tracks composed by this artist and by Tangerine Dream perfectly complement each other, creating an indeed dense, scary and atmospheric soundtrack, one of the best Tangerine Dream ever created. That the compositions are short and many? My dear, such is the convention - it would be a dull world if there was a unique recipe for what constitutes a good soundtrack. Fear not, dear audiophile - this album will satisfy your dreams and needs. Open your mind, and let the musicians guide you through the score.

I don't care if this CD has been out of print for 20 years, it's NOT worth the high price.

As far as TD soundtracks go, this one is actually pretty good. TD does a great job of matching the songs to fit the mood of the film and many of the tracks can stand alone without the listener having seen the film at all. "Go To the Head of the Class" is a fantastic piece reminiscent of "Love On a Real Train" from Risky Business. The only problem is, each track is WAY TOO SHORT! A few of the tracks are less than a minute long!

Another problem, is that some of the tracks are not even Tangerine Dream at all. Some of the music presented on this soundtrack is by Sylvester LeVay, although you will probably have a tough time differentiating between his music and TD's without consulting the CD sleeve. Don't get me wrong. Mr. LeVay's work is quite good, but thinking that all of the music contained on this CD was done by Tangerine Dream is just plain inaccurate.

When all is said and done, the entire CD delivers a mere 30-plus minutes of music. I'm sure TD die-hards are willing to shell out big buck$ for this one, but it's just not worth it. Find someone who already has the CD and rip a copy of it. You'll be glad you saved your money and will still be pleased with what you hear.

This is a fantastic CD! Glad i bought it and glad I have a great utility like AMAZON! You guys rock! I never would have been able to find this at damn tower records, and what's worse, they'd laugh at me when I asked for it, but with the net and Amazon, ANYONE can shop in peace! THANK YOU AMAZON!

For many people Tangerine Dream were the quintessential masters of the electronic score. Their first foray into film was in 1977 for William Friedkin's remake of The Wages of Fear, titled Sorcerer. By the mid 1980's they would be writing film scores every few months. However, the continued grind started to cause some tension within the group and by the time Three O'Clock High opened in America, Christopher Franke, one of the group's key members, would be gone.

Being an avid TD collector, I can tell you that there are two kinds of Tangerine Dream soundtracks. One in which the group has a hand in selecting and editing the tracks and another in which they do not. Three O'Clock High falls into the latter category. Their contribution here consists of 15 tracks (#`s 1-5, 11-20) that are mostly of short duration as many of them last barely over a minute. Their longest work here, "Go to the Head of the Class", should be instantly recognizable as it is indeed a reworking of the track "Love on a Real Train" from the movie Risky Business. This is no real surprise as previous soundtracks of theirs, such as Wavelength and even Risky Business itself, contain slight remixes of music previously released on TD studio albums. Still, that is the only such reworking here and despite such a short length TD's work is very up to par with their other film music.

The real surprise here is Sylvester Levay. He's probably most recognizable for his work on the TV series Airwolf, but here he could pose as a dead ringer for TD themselves. His work here (tracks 6-10) is dynamic, pulsing, and interlaced with some nice guitar. The ironic thing is that his contributions here sound slightly reminiscent to Near Dark, another movie TD did the soundtrack for in 1987. Of course, such comparison is a good thing. I actually think Levay outdoes TD here, which is no small compliment coming from a TD diehard. The tracks "Jerry's Decisions" and "The Fight is On" are the two longest and most fully realized pieces here.

The album closes with two songs which are by neither TD or Levay and are pretty forgettable in my opinion. However, the rest of the album is a prime slice of late 1980's electronic scoring. I'd recommend it along with any of Tangerine Dream's other soundtracks from the era.

Tangerine Dream has got to be one of the busiest groups when it comes to releasing music. The problem is that quantity does NOT equal quality. The 1980s saw TD score a ton of movies, and judging by some of the titles, they sure didn't discriminate. TD's soundtrack output started wonderfully with Sorcerer (1977) and continued with great work on Thief (1981), The Keep (1983), and Firestarter (1984). Then it went pear-shaped, and they started banging out soundtracks like they were paying the rent. They went from scoring moderately big Hollywood movies that people had at least heard of to doing flicks like Dead Solid Perfect, Deadly Care, Catch Me If You Can(!) and Three O'Clock High. What happened? And this says nothing about the music itself.

TD kicked this album out several years ago during their soundtrack years. The cuts are much more in line with the late 80's sound of TD than the atmospheric electronic work previoius to that, or the up-tempo work of the 90's. The cuts are varied, but mostly short cues.

Sylvester Levay (who cut teeth with Giorgio Moroder) adds a few TD sounding tracks to the mix.