Unless you've lived under a rock since 1996,
you've surely heard of Austin Powers, even if you haven't seen either of the
two films just yet. Mike Myer's tackled the spoofing of a genre that hadn't
seen a good spoof in a long time, and he succeeded for the most part,
creating a cultural icon in the process.
Of course, I have to wonder why it
took so "frickin'" long for the film score community to finally
get this CD. Three albums have already been released, but they
were simple song compilations (with the soundtrack of the first film
containing a small suite of Clinton's music). So now, more than a year after the release of
the second film, comes this CD. Not that I'm complaining that much,
it did come out eventually, but I do wonder why it took so long (and no
points will be deducted because of the delay).
While comedic scores generally don't work well aside from the visuals, the music from Austin Powers does quite
well in standing on its own. This is due to the fact that while Clinton does
correlate with the action onscreen, he is simultaneously, and whilst at the
same time, spoofing the scores of John Barry, Henry Mancini, and Jerry
Goldsmith. While Clinton makes liberal references to the works of Barry and
Goldsmith, the music from The Spy Who Shagged Me is really loaded
with the jazzy style of Mancini. This is what makes this music so fun to
listen to. Anyone who has a good knowledge of the scores from these three
composers will get the inside jokes that abound within the music. The
extremely light-hearted and carefree tone makes the score even more
enjoyable to listen to.
Of course, this release is not without its
problems. The cues are scattered around with only slight attention paid to arranging them in chorological
order and the jewel case
insert is a foldout poster thingy similar to the horrid design that plagued
Rykodisc releases.
This is definitely recommended to any Austin
Power fans out there, and especially Barry and Mancini aficionados who enjoy
a good spoof job. This is one of the best comedic scores to come out in a
long time and now we finally have it on CD. Kudos to RCA Victor despite the
fact that we shouldn't have had to wait this long. ****
