[.ca] Lost Boys

From Amazon.com:
Director Joel Schumacher, who went on to helm many big-budget, tiny-intellectual movies, gave us an 1980s update of the story of the vampire. It was all hip, good-looking, and tremendously vacuous. Similarly, the music doesn't break any new ground or offer much that's timeless. INXS' collaborations with Jimmy Barnes are fine, for instance, but Foreigner vocalist Lou Gramm's "Lost in the Shadows (The Lost Boys)" verges on the painful in a way that only overwrought 1980s music can. Roger Daltrey's take on Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" is by the numbers, and so wasted. It's only Echo and the Bunnymen's cover of The Doors' "People Are Strange" that warrants much attention, even if it's, erm, buried. --Scott Wilson

Occasionally excellent:
Maybe it's because it always brings back great memories of being a teenager in the late 80s, and everything that goes with that. But there are some genuinely good songs here, unusually good for a soundtrack album. Yeah, so there's some dross here as well. ("Power Play" and "Lost in the Shadows" are both pop by numbers.) But "Cry Little Sister" is a great slice of gothic pop, "I Still Believe" is beltingly good (with an awesome rather than cliched sax part), and "Beauty Has Her Way" is one of my all-time favourites. Who the hell are Mummy Calls, anyway? Who is the vocalist with the Bowie-esque vocal? I have no idea. But I love the song.

The best!:
What can I say ... I love the movie and I love the soundtrack. The chilling and haunting "Cry Little Sister" is my favorite and the main reason I purchased the soundtrack. "Lost in the Shadows" and "I still believe" have that beat that makes you want to stand up and declare yourself. I am completely satisfied with this soundtrack!

Still Great!!:
This CD is still great. I actually bought the record and tape when it first came out. I loved it so much that I had to buy the CD once I bought a CD player. I still break out the disk at least once a year and listen to it for a couple of weeks straight. I love all the songs, but if I had to pick my favorites it would have to be Good Times, Cry Little Sister, and Beauty Has Her Way. I highly recommend this CD!!!

Awesome CD:
This movie is one of the best vampire, or even horror movies of all time. It just adds to the spookiness of the movie to have an awesome soundtrack like this one. Soundtracks usually suck but I'm so glad someone finally paired an excellent movie with the music to match. Especially good are "Cry Little Sister" (of course) and "People are Strange." It's a must buy!

A Mixed Blessing:
While I'd like to give the soundtrack five stars based completely on the value of three songs, I feel I must admit that certain tracks are... almost embarrassing. Of course, two mildly distasteful tracks on a ten track CD is not too bad a score. I think I'll have to do this track by track, as each song (even those of less quality) is extremely divergent from the others, to my ear. 1.Good Times In most senses, this is not a remarkable song in any way. However, I dare you to control that urge to dance a little. 2.Lost in the Shadows (The Lost Boys) Musically, I enjoy this song to an extreme, and, outside of its chorus, the vocals, and the lyrics are not too bad(though more can be said for the lyrics than the vocals). Yet that trashy, piercing, repetitive chorus does grind at the nerves, making this song occasionally hard to listen to. 3. Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me I cannot offer an appropriate evaluation of this song, for my thoughts of it are too much influenced by personal memories it evokes. 4. Laying Down the Law The worst I can say about this song is that it is cliché, the best I can say is that I have a mild affection for the vocal track. 5.People Are Strange I love covers, I don't know why. There is something about the interpretation of one artist's work by another, in their work and not silly analytical words is moving to me. What's more, Echo And The Bunnymen does very well for themselves here. Dare I even venture to suggest that their arrangement was more... (Hm, complex? Interesting?) musically than the (deeply cherished and oft danced to) original. 6.Cry Little Sister(Theme from The Lost Boys) What does one say about a song that speaks for itself? Dark, sharp, twisting, and deeply evocative of the movies themes of inner turmoil and lost direction, Cry Little Sister is, bar none, the best song on the album. "My Shangri la, I can't forget why you were mine-" 7.Power Play A baseball metaphor? A BASEBALL metaphor? I love baseball above all other sports but, please! How...tacky. 8.I Still Believe I wonder how many reeds their saxophone player went through during this recording. Damn, that's a harsh, terrific sound. Forget the mildly pedestrian lyrics and listen to that horn. 9.Beauty Has Her Way It is good. I don't mean that in a semi-literate, Kindergarten fashion, but rather, 'and God saw that it was good'. If not anywhere near as important as the world in which we live, this song has a striking, evocative, and charmingly, heartwarmingly sinister tone that defies my judgments. What can I say? Beauty has her way. 10. To the Shock of Miss Louise I don't understand the title, I do understand the music. When I was very young, I read a book in which a girl has a dream of being trapped on a carousel, which is whirling ever faster into a black pile. All around her, wicked faces laughed, and people shouted and jeered. That is the essence of the piece, perhaps even of the entire soundtrack, and the movie which it graces.

• Good Times - Jimmy Barnes, INXS
• Lost in the Shadows (The Lost Boys) - Lou Gramm
• Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me - Roger Daltrey
• Laying Down the Law - Jimmy Barnes, INXS
• People Are Strange - Echo & the Bunnymen
• Cry Little Sister (Theme from the Lost Boys) - Gerard McMann
• Power Play - Eddie & The Tide, Eddie and the Tide
• I Still Believe - Tim Capello
• Beauty Has Her Way - Mummy Calls
• To the Shock of Miss Louise - Thomas Newman