Musichound Soundtracks: The Essential Album Guide, to Film, Television, & Stage Music

Brand new, perfect condition. No marks, not a remainder. No shelf wear. Visible Ink Press 1999 softcover, 872 pages. Describes and reviews 3,000 soundtracks available on CD. Fast shipping in box, tracking.

First published in 1997 under the "VideoHound" series imprint, this completely revised and expanded edition has 1000 new entries and 100 photographs. Functioning only as a buyer's guide, it discusses CDs currently available in America. One quickly learns that CD technology has resurrected many soundtracks from bygone years, such as Death Wish (1974). The succinct and generally well-written reviews offer very little comment on the productions themselves, concentrating appropriately on the music in question. In addition to the massive A-to-Z coverage, there is an interesting essay by Capitol Records Soundtracks director Julia Michaels on how songs were picked, as well as MusicHound's usual comprehensive indexing and useful appendixes. It is a little disconcerting, however, to find TV series like The Wonder Years dismissed as "infantile" though the tunes that framed the show get four dog bones (one short of the best MusicHound rating). Overall, however, like MusicHound's rock and other music CD-album rating guides, this is a fun, useful, and reasonably priced addition to any pop music reference collection.
-David M. Turkalo, Suffolk Univ. Law Sch. Lib., Boston
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.