by Aaron Lupton and Jeff Szpirglas (Music 781.542 Lup)
I have a love/hate relationship with this book.
I really want to love it — it covers one of my primary passions — the
collecting (and playing) of SF/Fantasy movie soundtracks. But Planet Wax is riddled
with so many problems that I have considerable difficulty in allowing myself to
recommend it.
But first, the good things: For anyone who
grew up on the science fiction and fantasy films of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s
(the book sets a cut-off point of films released in 1999), the visuals in Planet Wax will trigger
lots of pleasant memories. The authors profile over 180 films whose soundtracks
stand out in some way, and over 2/3 of each page of the book is dedicated to a
reproduction of the album cover associated with the soundtrack. The authors
break their content into some oddly-chosen categories: Epic Sci-Fi, Adult
Fantasy, Dark Dystopia, Action/Adventure, Pop, Family Features, Comic
Book/Superheroes, Television, and Unidentified Objects.
Unfortunately, the large graphics lead to very
short sections of explanatory text — the authors even mention at one point that
they limit themselves to 350 or fewer words for their background blurbs about
most of the albums. Now, I’ll admit that the title of the book actually refers
to the “vinyl” releases of soundtracks, but speaking as someone who’d much
rather have the CDs, the constant refrains from the authors of “hopefully this
one will have a vinyl re-release soon” got tiresome quickly. The authors do a
good job of clearly identifying the many different versions of a film’s
soundtrack album releases (both vinyl and CD), and the differences in those
(expansions, inclusion of previously unreleased music, etc.) but then they do
not clearly identify which version’s art they’ve reproduced on the page above
the text.
It is obvious that the authors of Planet Wax are incredibly
enthusiastic about their topic — they’ve also previously put out a volume on
Horror Movie music. But they do NOT include some major film soundtracks from
pre-2000 films that seem like they should be in this book. What they have
included seems mainly the authors’ personal favorites, including some very
obscure films at the expense of more logical inclusions. And, worst of all, the
book is riddled with typos, grammatical errors and simple factual errors (the
legendary composer Carl Orff is repeated referred to as Carl Off) — Planet Wax could have
really used some heavy editing.
Like I said, I really wanted to love this
book…it’s the kind of reference volume that I usually adore. And it DOES have a
lot of good stuff in it. But I constantly winced at every error or glitch in
the book. Your mileage may vary, especially if you’re willing to overlook the
obvious mistakes. And, honestly, if you’re just looking for a great nostalgia
fix, you’ll probably love this.
Personally, it gets a positive review from me
for two big reasons — the authors include the single “Theme From The Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not)” (from
my all-time favorite TV show) as a significant genre music contribution, in
their chapter on genre TV-show music, and because of their detailed
descriptions of the history of alternative soundtrack releases for each film
included, I’ve been able to identify at least a dozen expanded soundtracks for
some of my favorite films, for which I only own the original, apparently incomplete
recordings — guess I’ll be doing some soundtrack shopping!
So…consider this a reluctant thumbs up for Planet Wax. Definitely worth
exploring, but not with a critical eye.
(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Blood on Black Wax: Horror Soundtracks On Vinyl, also
by Lupton and Szpirglas.)
( Aaron Lupton video interview about Planet Wax )
| ( official Aaron Lupton Twitter
feed )
Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you read or listened to
this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
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