From: Shadsfax Issue 26 (2000) 9–10
The Shadows
"Favourite TV, Film & Show Tunes"
EMI Australia 7243 5 20012 2 4
Released 1999
Man Of Mystery / The Frightened City / The Savage / Peace Pipe / Blue Star / Foot Tapper (mono single version) / Genie With The Light Brown Lamp / Round And Round (mono) / Ranka-Chank / Rhythm And Greens / Tonight / Thunderbirds Theme (mono) / Maroc 7 / Slaughter On 10th Avenue / Pinball Wizard: See Me Feel Me / Don’t Cry For Me Argentina / Theme From The Deer Hunter / Bright Eyes
The second element of this CD was catered for in the LP ‘The Shadows At The Movies’ (1978), though this wasn’t very wide-ranging (nine of the fourteen tracks were taken up with the EPs ‘The Boys’ and ‘Rhythm And Greens’).
Here is a programme offering material from 1960 through to 1979, and it is enjoyable enough. But why aren’t the tracks arranged in strict chronological order? There are not even original release dates attached to the respective titles. And why are no sleeve-notes provided? This is exactly the sort of compilation that cries out for them.
As for the music, Round And Round would have been better in stereo and Ranka-Chank in proper rather than reprocessed stereo. The single version of Foot Tapper is not generally associated with the Cliff film. Finally, Pinball Wizard has its stereo channels reversed; a common Australian trick, why they do it is a mystery to me.
In fact, now that EMI UK have released a numbered of superbly remastered Digipak albums, EMI Australia, Disky and other major licensees really ought to think about updating their masters (a relatively straightforward job these days); just listen to Pinball on ‘Rockin’ With Curly Leads’ as against the effort on this disc; or, to take another example at random, Maria Elena on ‘Jigsaw’ in comparison with the offering on the recent Disky set ‘Original Gold’ (Holland 1999). You won’t need exotic audio equipment to spot the differences here.
MC