L.A. Confidential [Soundtrack]by Anonymous

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February 24, 2007: If you could buy only one CD this year, I have NO IDEA what it should be. Maybe you should get a second job, you deadbeat. But if you buy two CDs (without having to work in a salt mine, or sell Uncle Bob, piece by piece, for experiments), it should be two soundtracks: L.A. Confidential and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Dark, ethereal, and moody, these albums have presence, and hold together on their own as great albums, able to stand apart and peer out from beneath the long, great shadows cast by their respective impressive film counterparts. ** As with all soundtracks, make sure you see the songs listed on the back and not simply "original score." Don't go home with orchestral, background music when you want classic songs and vocals. L.A. Confidential has the period songs by the period's artists, including Johnny Mercer's FANTASTIC "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive." Jerry Goldsmith gets two pieces of his powerful score on the CD, the title track and the even better "Badge of Honor." The period songs are great, the sweet voice of Kay Starr and Lee Wiley are terrific, and even the instrumentals are good here. Johnny Mercer, as mentioned before, is great here, but the stand-out on this album is Dean Martin's "Christmas Blues." In all his swagger-voiced, king-of-cool splendor, Dino brings us one of the greatest (and least heard) Christmas songs of all time. Worth the price of admission itself. My suggestion: get both CDs, dim the lights, pour yourself a beverage or four, and listen to these two albums back to back. Repeat as necessary.