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Review of Beverly Hills Cop (Harold Faltermeyer)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you recognize how challenging it can be to record
contemporary, synthetic comedy music that is cool rather than
cringeworthy, Harold Faltermeyer accomplishing that feat with pure
1980's exuberance.
Avoid it... if you cannot tolerate film scores that repeat their constructs ad nauseam without significant alteration to their base performance inflection.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Beverly Hills Cop: (Harold Faltermeyer) It's hard
to imagine anyone other than Eddie Murphy staring as wise-cracking
detective Axel Foley in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, but the
original 1984 movie's production had cycled between everyone from Mickey
Rourke to Sylvester Stallone and Harrison Ford by the time it landed
the lead. Murphy's inherent humor, which had catapulted him to the
forefront of the industry in just a couple of years, led the buddy cop
genre to the peak of its popularity in the 1980's, his
Detroit-originating character forming an unlikely bond with Beverly
Hills police as he investigates the killing of a friend. Together in a
clumsy but affable bond with the skeptical Beverly Hills officers, the
group busts major drug cartel operations and a lasting partnership is
formed. These formulaic films thrive on the interactions between Murphy
and his colleagues, much of the dialogue conjured on the set at filming.
The initial Beverly Hills Cop film was an immense critical and
popular success, leading all R-rated movies in grosses for decades and
spawning several sequels. While the subsequent films were not as
popular, Murphy's ascent was complete; he would sire at least ten
children from a variety of women starting shortly thereafter. The movie
was also continued affirmation for the production skills of Don Simpson
and Jerry Bruckheimer, who themselves were enjoying a remarkable period
of success in the 1980's. The soundtracks for their films, and
particularly the resulting albums, were a top priority, and they had
reaped immense profits from the music of Giorgio Moroder up to that
point. German musician and synthesist Harold Faltermeyer became the
go-to composer for the Simpson and Bruckheimer team in the years between
Moroder and Hans Zimmer, mostly because they had taken notice of
Faltermeyer's skills in collaboration with Moroder on their previous
projects. The producers had confidence that Faltermeyer was a better
match for the humor of Beverly Hills Cop than Moroder, and their
bet paid off. The soundtrack became an international sensation, in part
because of the bevy of popular new songs included in the film but also
because of Faltermeyer's own impact.
The songs selected for Beverly Hills Cop were a variety of pop, dance, and R&B originals, and each reinforced the upbeat nature of the film's personality. Faltermeyer had a hand in writing "The Heat is On," the Glenn Frey headliner that drove the compilation's popularity and became an anthem for Los Angeles itself. Despite its success and that of other songs from Patti LaBelle and The Pointer Sisters, it was Faltermeyer's score track, "Axel F" that became an ultimate chart-topping favorite, its synth theme ubiquitous throughout the 1980's and inspiring countless covers. Rarely do the original score cues placed on a popular song compilation help drive the product's popularity, but Faltermeyer had the knack in the mid-1980's for doing just that. His synthetic music for the first two Beverly Hills Cop films was largely identical, and they reflected pop sensibilities relating to the instrumental backing of mainstream songs more than the experimental tones coming out of John Carpenter and others. In that regard, Faltermeyer was met with the kind of acceptance and awards consideration that blessed Vangelis in the same era. For enthusiasts of synthesizers, however, Faltermeyer's equipment is no less interesting. He utilized a Roland Jupiter 8 for the main melody, a Moog System 15 and Oberheim OB-8 for its bassline, a Yamaha DX7 for the marimba of the banana theme and other motifs, a Linn LM-1 for the drums, and various other Roland machines for the hand claps and water drops throughout. The demeanor he yields with this equipment is unyieldingly positive, even the suspenseful portions rather lighthearted. Faltermeyer admits having attempted to emulate Henry Mancini's playfulness in the score's tone, the endless stream of major key rhythms and melodies keeping the environment exactly as the producers wanted: humorous. Music that can qualify as "funny" is notoriously challenging to create, especially without specific instruments from an orchestra, but Faltermeyer succeeds very well at this task with his synthetic options and flowing movements. To some listeners, the themes may be overly simplistic and the whole score may come across as endless variants of drum machine programs. From a structural standpoint, that's an accurate observation, but this film benefitted greatly from it. While the themes in Faltermeyer's score for Beverly Hills Cop are largely single-phrased melodies repeated countless times, there is a significant number of them at work in the narrative. These ideas sometimes overlap in meaningful ways, including three of them at once at 1:03 into "Foley Busted," the most complicated moment in the score, but don't expect such complexity often. The famed "Axel F" theme actually consists of four distinct elements that the composer can apply in any combination depending on the action and characters on screen. The main melody of the film that opens the "Axel F" suite arrangement on the Roland Jupiter 8 is a jaunty, fun, and repetitive phrase with no secondary development. It starts "Foley Finds Mikey," "Flowers," and "Foley Busted" solo, follows all the other main themes at 0:54 into "Late Dinner/Warehouse," and interjects over the bassline and buddy cop theme in "The New Team" and "Chase to Harrow's." This theme for Axel's swagger follows the lead of the bassline per usual in "Rosewood/Foley to Gallery," offers confidence over the tepid beginning at 0:38 into "The Discovery," and overcomes the villains' rhythmic motif early in "Good Guys on Grounds." It totally dominates the early portions of the score but is sadly diminished to near total absence in the final third. The same path is taken by the bassline of Axel's theme, which is its own entity that moves cyclically under many of the main melody performances but can exist by itself. Heard at 0:16 into the "Axel F" suite, this bassline guides most of "Foley Finds Mikey" and "Flowers" after other parts of the theme stop. It assists in "Foley Busted," opens "Late Dinner/Warehouse," starts "The New Team," sets the action pacing in "Chase to Harrow's," and again begins "Rosewood/Foley to Gallery" and "The Discovery" with no variation. The catchy B phrase to the main melody is the buddy cop theme, lightly keyboarded in staccato fashion at 0:48 into "Axel F." It is liberally applied to the score, debuting at 0:24 into "Foley Finds Mikey" and recurring at 0:16 into "Foley Busted" in identical form and rising out of the main bassline in "Late Dinner/Warehouse" and persisting for most of the cue. It again follows the bassline opening of "The New Team," shifts to a bass marimba effect at the start of "Chase to Harrow's" before returning to normal, and is reprised at 0:38 into "Rosewood/Foley to Gallery." The buddy cop theme in Beverly Hills Cop does receive more variance in inflection compared to the other parts of the "Axel F" suite. Most of the score's thematic ideas espouse no significant development or adaptation into different emotional states from their base performance, with the drum machine altered the most for different levels of excitement, but the last third of the movie does allow Faltermeyer to explore varied states with the buddy cop theme. It is lighter in the soundscape early in "The Discovery," very slight over villain material at 0:45 into "Good Guys on Grounds," and vaguely meanders through the middle of "Foley Shoots a Bad Guy." The theme never shakes the ultra-staccato keyboarding, which is a shame, because it may have sounded better with fuller notes or a little more reverb. The final component of the "Axel F" suite of themes is the composer's comedy theme, which he endearingly terms the "banana theme" after a funny scene in the movie. It provides the marimba comedy effect at 1:44 into "Axel F" and exists in the score at 0:32 into "Foley Busted" (taking a counterpoint role later in the cue), 0:29 into "Late Dinner/Warehouse," and at 1:46 into "Good Guys on Grounds," where it shifts to a beefier but still funny action mode twice. Four themes and motifs occupy the actual pursuit of justice in Beverly Hills Cop, and all are tangentially related to the villains as well as the cops' actions to hunt them down. The main bad guy chase/pursuit theme is frequently applied by Faltermeyer from start to finish, an ascending, deep marimba motif against high pulses on key and cyclical surrounding action. Its secondary lines consist of a more prominently exciting, undulating line for fake brass synth effects that ultimately becomes the de facto villains' theme by the end of the story. Developed throughout "Shoot Out," which was reworked by the composer to serve as a secondary suite of themes from the score for album consideration, this chase/pursuit theme continues similarly in "Customs." There, both parts of the theme build the two halves to their familiar role in "Rosewood Saves Foley/Rosewood/Foley to Mansion," the secondary lines returning to its heightened brassy synth mode in the middle. High pulses open "Good Guys on Grounds" with this theme and later yield it against protagonist material, bursting from the other villain motif briefly in the middle of "Foley Shoots a Bad Guy" and gaining momentum in the second half of "Zack Shot." While the various facets of Faltermeyer chase/pursuit theme for the villains handle most of their appearances, the composer does explore some secondary ideas related to them. A confrontation theme is a cyclical formation for deep keyboards throughout "Cops Follow Merc" that returns a bit faster in "Foley Shoots a Bad Guy" with the main villain rhythm attached. It continues in its supplemental lines only during "Zack Shoots" and guides the start of "Zack Shot" while lending only its background elements to "Maitland Shot." Ancillary to this material is a specific suspense rhythm, a simple keyboarded pulse on key that is used to generate what little challenging environment exists musically in this score. This suspense technique is heard during all of "Bad Guys" and builds to the climax in "Maitland Shot." Faltermeyer also supplies a rather oddly romantic discovery motif to the score, a keyboarded deep bass theme of two phrases heard in the second half of "The Discovery" that eventually gains an electric guitar effect for a brief moment of coolness. This idea blends with the chase/pursuit theme in the first half of "Zack Shot" and is provided its own thematic suite in "The Discovery (Theme Suite)." That suite arrangement is an attractive extension of Faltermeyer's more romantic tendencies, and while it may not make total sense in the context of its placement within the picture, it makes for a good listening experience on the composer's bass synths that would earn their stripes in Top Gun. That theme exposes a rather interesting aspect about the score for Beverly Hills Cop, and that is the lack of impactful role for guitars in the work. Faltermeyer applies synthetic tones that emulate the same general sound, but they obviously can't supply the same performance inflection. Still, the composer managed to hit his target squarely with this assignment; it's nearly impossible to record contemporary comedy music that is cool rather than cringeworthy, and whether you like his style or not, Faltermeyer's work is a great match for the concept. While the song album was commonplace, the score itself was not released until La-La Land Records provided a full treatment of it on CD in 2016, appending a variety of alternate takes and arrangements in addition to the most pertinent songs. That product is a long overdue and worthy homage to the score despite an awkwardly sudden splice at 0:42 into "Zack Shoots." The same presentation was re-issued by the label in 2019, though all 5,000 copies from the combined pressings sold out in short order, testimony to the lasting impact and popularity of Faltermeyer's score. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
All Albums:
Total Time: 62:55
NOTES & QUOTES:
The inserts of both pressings include significant information
about the score and film. Only their cover art slightly differs.
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