'80s Music Review: The Dirty Dancing Soundtrack

Mention 80's music and most people will think of Madonna's Boy Toy phase, "heavy metal" hair bands, The Cure's proto-goths, or Michael Jackson when "Thriller" was as disturbing as he got. The era of legwarmers, single gloves, Ronald Reagan, and Miami Vice is now so encapsulated in its own retro-kitsch image that it's easy to forget that one of the later trends of that decade was its own fascination with the 1960's. From Vietnam War movies to The Wonder Years to the hyped up 20^th anniversary of Woodstock, the turbulent times of the 60's were back in style. Enter Dirty Dancing and its dark horse of a soundtrack.

The 1987 dance romance Dirty Dancing was an unexpected hit, a low-budget film with no major star power that rocketed to #1 within days of its release. Perhaps even more unexpected was the popularity of its soundtrack album, a mix of 80's pop and 60's classics that garnered an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy for its original hit, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", and fueled an oldies revival trend.

Despite the fervor generated by the Bill Medley/Jennifer Warnes duet "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", the real gems on this collection aren't the ones that hit the charts as singles after the movie's release. While some of us were young enough to hear the Ronette's "Be My Baby" and for the first time finally get Eddie Money's reference in "Take Me Home Tonight", the best era-specific cut on this album is the slinky, teasing, bantering "Love is Strange" by Mickey & Sylvia, with its earwormy Latin rhythms and playful spoken-word interludes. Of the new recordings, the unsung but highly singable gem is unquestionably British new wave band The Blow Monkeys' cover of "You Don't Own Me". Slow, sinuous, with just a bit of snarl, it stirred the rebel femme in all of us (and only if it had been Joan Jett's version could it have been any more perfect).

Other tracks, like Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs' "Stay" or Patrick Swayze's trite "She's Like the Wind", are fairly forgettable. The album would have been better served to replace these with tracks included in the sequel soundtrack More Dirty Dancing such as Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine" or one of the instrumental dance tracks like "De Todo un Poco". Still, the collection overall is fun and upbeat, the kind of album that evokes summer freedom and breathless romance. It makes you want to get up and move, and on that score, it's a great success.

It's also stood up well to the judgment of time; twenty-two years later, it's still a satisfying listen, whether or not you have nostalgic attachments to the film. Only here and there does it feel dated, but even the cheese is fun in a jeez-how-I-used-to-love-this way.

Compared to the marketing machines that since that time would likely choose such a pastiche soundtrack based on focus group results and sales projections, the initial inspiration for the Dirty Dancing album seems as innocent as pre-Johnny-Castle Baby Houseman. The 60's music that made the cut was largely taken from screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's personal collection of old 45's, handpicked by the writer herself. Perhaps this accounts for the album's-and to a large extent the movie's-charm; an underlying authenticity growing from the fondness for the music that captured a moment, an era, a turning point in life.

Sources:

Jay Cocks, "Do You Wanna Dirty Dance?", TIME Magazine
Polly Vernon, "Hey Baby - we're all Swayze now", The Observer

Where to find it:

Amazon.com
CD Universe
Barnes & Noble
J&R
Best Buy