Curtis Mayfield – Super Fly [1972; Buddah Records, Curtom]

With the soundtrack to Super Fly, Curtis Mayfield and his band direct their soul music with uncommon focus, telling a story that diverges at points from that of the film (e.g., the amount of care given to Freddie, of “Freddie’s Dead”). Riding along with unhurried pacing, the music hits a persistently impressive balance between busy action and cool relaxation, both in the energy of the songs and the work from the performers. Mayfield’s vocals are at once sorrowful and teasing, and the few instrumental pieces step up to fill the absence of his singing with fervency, keeping the album’s flow going steady. Despite the generally calm presentation, there’s a lot to dig into over the course of the nine songs, with the most chorus-driven ones seeded carefully through the run to maximize memorability.

Here’s the alternate cover art.

And the cover art from a German reissue.

Various Artists – Money Talks: The Album [1997; Arista]

Mixing rap, R&B, and soul, from Brand Nubian to Mary J. Blige to Barry White, the soundtrack to the ‘97 Charlie Sheen & Chris Tucker movie Money Talks rolls with a generally laid-back vibe, while moods both playful and pensive are supplied by the singers. The variety ends up fitting together well, thanks to similarities in production and sampling (or sample sources, in the case of the James Brown and Barry White
tracks), but it still ends up feeling more like a late-’90s cross-cut of urban-aimed corporate interest than an assortment picked to fit the movie’s themes.

Pop-ups like SWV, Mase, and Lisa Stansfield reinforce how of-the-time the soundtrack was, but aside from the inclusion of Refugee Camp All Star’s “Avenues” (their biggest single), there’s better material to be heard from practically every one of the included artists, and the most notable aspect of the release is probably that it gave Chris Tucker his only music production credit.

Asei Kobayashi / Micky Yoshino / Godiego ‎- House [1977; Columbia]

In the soundtrack to the 1977 Japanese horror/comedy film House (also commonly known as Hausu), the team of song-writers bring together influences from prog rock, pop, blues, and folk music, with a sense of playfulness (e.g., “Hungry House Blues”, which is exactly what the title suggests) to match the movie’s own attitude. Some nimble strings in the proggier tunes, and an earworm of a main theme (revisited in varying flavors) keep things bouncing along, with some interesting interactions between Japanese and American stylings.

Most of the music is kept instrumental, but the songs which do include singing are endearingly goofy (the near-delirious sweetness of ”Cherries Were Made for Eating” being the stand-out track in this regard). Thanks to restrained synthesizer usage, the music doesn’t really show its age outside of some stylistic choices, and the energy running through it is expressed in delightful ways. Despite the relative scarcity of its release (issued on vinyl in ‘77, reissued on CD in ‘08, and a remastered vinyl issue in ‘18), it’s well worth tracking down for fans of the film and Japanese prog rock.

The Sherman Brothers – Walt Disney’s The Happiest Millionaire [1967; Buena Vista Records]

With this soundtrack, the composing team of the Sherman Brothers get to cover a wide territory with their writing, with self-assessing solo ballads, odes to Irishness, religious athletics anthems, wistful automobile industry glories, and sparring behavioral comparison trade-off matches. It’s a soundtrack about as sprawling as the ~3-hour movie itself, though a couple of songs do end up trimmed out, and the jumps in focus feel more than a little disjointed without the narrative to link them together. Despite that, there’s plenty of Old Hollywood enthusiasm and lushness on display, and though there’s nothing too innovative to the songs, they’re written solidly enough to lodge a few verses in memory.

Here’s the alternate cover art.

Various Artists – The Best of Disney, Volume Two [1978; Disneyland]

In this second and final installment of the Best of Disney compilation series, the selections come from live-action and animated films (plus one track, “Disco Mouse”, from the New Mickey Mouse Club TV series), with little flow or linkage between the picked tracks. The audio quality is better than that of the first in the series, though there’s still a bit of fuzziness at times, and for the most part, the performances come off quite well. Mary Poppins and Pinocchio each get two inclusions, and aside from So Dear to My Heart, the rest of the sources are well-exposed entries in Disney’s catalog. A decent compilation, but the seemingly careless grab-bag nature stains it with a sense of pointlessness.