Greatest Movie Hits – Volume 2

Black Dyke Band
Conductor: Nicholas Childs
Obrasso Recordings: CD916
Total Playing Time: 60.26

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Let's get this out of the way sharpish.  Where as ‘Fantastic Overtures' was a fine release sending musical tripe back to where it belonged, ‘Greatest Movie Hits' – Volume 2, is a poor release that drops huge dollops of the old cows innards right back in the middle of your living room.

You do wonder why Black Dyke agreed to do this second volume. They don't need the popularity (or even the hassle of recording this – although one suspects it didn't take them very long) and they have made so many better produced and presented releases elsewhere (as well as on Obrasso to be fair) over the past few years. This one smacks a bit of the producers just trying to find an angle (or USP as they say in the retail business) to try and flog off some of their most lightweight stock with little concern to what it does to the reputation of the artist in question.

Perhaps Obrasso felt this was the brass band version of the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing all those ‘Hooked on Classics' rubbish that used to involve a off beat clapping track all those years ago. On second thoughts – don't give them any more ideas.

Black Dyke as ever, approach the task with their usual degree of professionalism, giving each track an appropriate amount of care and attention far in excess of what they should merit. You cannot however make a musical purse out of an arrangements pigs ear and not even their quality playing can stop you from cringing as the tracks churn out of your CD like badly made sausages at a dodgy butchers. 

Some of the sausages are of course better than the others, but all of them belong in the bargain basement shopping area for bands that may be tempted to buy them. The sound you will hear if these are ever played at band contest or concert is not that of the scrapping of the bottom of the barrel but of the finger nails clawing the dirt below it. 

Just a question. Has anyone ever seen the film of the television series ‘Hawaii Five –O' when we are at it? Didn't think so, (it was made as a television movie and aired a week before the series began in 1968), so why use it here, and why on earth call it ‘Great'! The arrangement also contains the most obvious clunking change of key in the history of brass band arranging. Poor old Jack Lord would be spinning in his grave.

Also - Are any of the movies from which the music is taken entitled to be called ‘Greatest'? In that case you do wonder how on earth ‘Lilo and Stitich' got in here, or are they the greatest musical hits from pretty shoddy movies – in that case the same applies.

This has the feel of a rather cynical attempt to cash in on a market place by believing that popularity equates to quality. It doesn't.

Even Michael Caine, who has been part of a few golden turkeys over the years would be horrified with ‘Zulu', whilst ‘The Imperial March' from ‘Star Wars' is a classic example of how to stretch 16 bars of a decent theme into three minutes of repetitive pap. The ‘Essential James Bond' is not essential in any way, shape or form. The rest are not much better.  

Black Dyke are badly served by this release – all the more so by the fact that they do their very best to give some sheen of class to the tracks, whilst Obrasso hasn't even made the time or effort to add any details about any of the pieces in the sleeve notes and has just churned out the same insert as ‘Fantastic Overtures' but with a different cover.

This is a series that should be stopped literally in its musical tracks before it goes any further and cheapens the name and reputation of the most famous brass band in the world. If you really do need to buy it then by all means do so. You have been warned though - this is one to buy if you need to entertain the kids in the back of the car on a long journey in the rain.  

Iwan Fox

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