Zabriskie Point: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
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Free Music Notes for Zabriskie Point: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Free Music Review: Of special interest to die-hard fans of Floyd and The Dead
Hit: 5 Stars
I have never seen this film, and all I know is what I have read. It sounds like it might be interesting, but I can't say. But this soundtrack, on the merits of the music alone, is an excellent cross-section of styles and genres circa 1969-70. The sound is clear and solid, a huge improvement on the original not-so-good sounding release. This is a purely personal observation, as my old copy was a store-bought cassette. It sounded alright, but it pales next to this reissue.
The material is a juxtaposition (real word?) of mostly psychedelic rock and old-style American country music; when it was still good. No chubby smiling wannabe with his black cowboy hat crooning for the droves of clueless masses, etc. No, this is the real thing. A subversive mood is set with Pink Floyd's "Heartbeat Pigmeat." The title sets it up; it's strange and incongruous, as is the music. The cleaned-up sound really takes this to its extreme, and the swirling sounds and voices are perfectly reproduced. I won't belabor the reader with a song-by-song synopsis, this has been done into the ground, but a curious thing happens while listening to this whole disc, in order; the original recordings are of varying quality, but this is okay, as Patti Page's "Tennesee Waltz" has retained its smoky late 40's early 50's tone because of this. And the bluegrass song, Roscoe Holcomb's "Wish I Was A Single Girl Again" just wouldn't sound right if it were "State-Of-The-Art."
But, to the Floyd fan, anyway, the highlight is the set's closing number, "Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up." This is a superior remake of the 1968 classic, "Careful With That Axe, Eugene." The quiet part is more sinister and malevolent, and the other part is, well, to the uninitiated, a real adrenaline rush. The explosive nature of it, the booklet says, conveys a very violent scene in the movie. Again, I haven't seen it. I'm shooting in the dark.
The second disc is the bonus material, and the first four tracks are basically a half-hour of Jerry Garcia noodling away on his guitar. It's not particularly exciting to listen to, quite dull, actually, but it does show his talent as a very lyrical musician. It's relaxing, in fact, and one can cue these selections up when preparing for bed. Garcia was a good musician and a great guy, and he will be missed.
The rest of the bonus disc is taken from a month's torture Pink Floyd went through trying to satisfy the film's director, Mr. Antonioni. They just couldn't make him happy. But the material here is tastefully rendered, and once again, the analog sound has been digitized and sounds fresh and new. BUT! There is an error in the booklet's text. It says the track titled "Country Song" is sung by Roger Waters. Any Floyd fan, even a tepid one, can tell Waters' voice from Gilmour's and Wright's. The voice is clearly Gilmour's, even if Waters wrote the lyrics, which he probably did. These selections were obviously untitled at the time, the current titles convey this. "Country Song," Unknown Song," "Love Scene-Version 6" and "love Scene-Version 4," they lack the poetic value of other original titles, such as 1968's "A Saucerful Of Secrets." Original title: "The Massed Gadgets Of Hercules." 1971's "Echoes:" "The Return Of The Son Of Nothing."
But we now have, nonetheless, a very good soundtrack recording of an old subversive film, and some new nuggets from Garcia, and Misters Waters, Wright, Mason, and Gilmour.
I really wish people still did stuff like this.
Free Music Review: Works Together as a Whole
Hit: 5 Stars
There is a unique mood set by this CD, that is wholly separate from the film itself. The weirdness of psychedelic Pink Floyd tunes juxtaposed with acoustic pieces, hurtin' country tunes, and the "Tennessee Waltz" no less (!), works together to create an entirely unusual head space. Open your mind, and the rest will flow. I owned this on vinyl originally, and jumped when I saw the double CD re-release. Besides 4 lengthy out takes from Jerry Garcia's beautiful love theme, it also has 4 unreleased Pink Floyd pieces, "Country Song", which sounds like something that would have been at home on "Atom Heart Mother", "Unknown Song", a breezy acoustic instrumental with psychedelic flourishes that is vintage Floyd, and two pieces that were Pink Floyd's original attempts at writing music for the love scene before film director Antonioni opted to go with Jerry Garcia's piece. Both are excellent, one an amazing, late night blues instrumental, the other a reflective piano piece. The second disk is a worthy addition to the package. The double CD also comes with some excellent liner notes that fully recognize the failure of the film to achieve the director's ambitions while at the same time recognizing the unique contribution its sound track made to rock history.Free Music Review: A Must-have for any REAL fan of Pink Floyd!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
I will admit that I only gave this CD set a five-star rating because of the exceptional, early Pink Floyd songs it contains. 'Come in Number 51, Your Time is Up' is definately the best version of the Floyd song otherwise entitled, 'Careful with that Axe, Eugene.' The other six Pink Floyd songs are also priceless. There is a very bluesy track that focuses on David Gilmours guitar playing. This is followed by a wonderful solo effort by keyboardist Rick Wright (though it remains under the title, The Pink Floyd.) I won't spoil the mystery of the other Floyd tracks...Aside from the Pink Floyd (and Jerry Garcia) tracks, there isn't much worth listenting to. Unless, ofcourse you like really old country or country-folk songs...
Free Music Review: The manifesto of psychedelic rock
Hit: 5 Stars
Slow motion images of explosions accompanied by the best psychedelic rock ever written. This soundtrack is really the Masterpiece of 60's and the Manifesto of the sperimental music of that decade. Zabrisky Point is a Milestone in rock and contemporary music, a piece of rock history.Free Music Review: Great soundtrack
Hit: 5 Stars
In all honesty, The soundtrack is better then the actual movie.