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Editorial Reviews

In their never-ending mission to spin just about anything into a symphonic "pops" album, Erich Kunzel & the Cincinnati Pops found about an hour's worth of law-and-order music from TV and cinema to blast and cruise through. With the long-running James Bond film series as a starting point, Kunzel casts his net toward the films Dick Tracy, Rambo, Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, Darkman, Shaft, and The Untouchables, and a whole string of ultra-familiar television themes. The treatments of the early Bond themes, including those from Goldfinger and From Russia With Love, are raucous fun, oozing with period pizazz, while a middle-period Bond theme, Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die," generally follows the example of Macca's single until the tinkly coda. In general, though, the more recent the score, the more formulaic the excerpt tends to be -- with exceptions, of course. Danny Elfman's Dick Tracy and Darkman music is, as usual, routine stuff from an overrated Hollywood routinier, while Ennio Morricone's excerpts from The Untouchables show touches of a lively imagination. The wah-wah-laden symphonic arrangement of Shaft is Kunzel's own -- and it's not too far away from Isaac Hayes' original treatment, minus the vocal section. And the medley of themes from TV shows like Perry Mason, Hillstreet Blues, The F.B.I., Hawaii Five-O, et al. will tickle your nostalgia bone perhaps more than anything else here. Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide

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