PRINTER FRIENDLY VIEW
(inverts site colors)

•	2014 Album

•	1991 Album

•	2023 Album

•	2014 Album

•	1991 Album

The soundtrack for The Naked Gun consists of four key parts that generally trade positions as necessary. Up front is the combination of exoticism and action for the larger assassination element in the story. Then there's the aforementioned jazz that comes in several variants for the main character. The romantic side is an increasing factor as the story progresses. Finally, there's the whole section of baseball-oriented music for the final third of the picture that supplants the traditional score to a degree. Each of these aspects is competently handled by Newborn, and listeners not interested in approaching this soundtrack as a mere souvenir of a favorite film will likely find themselves attracted more to certain parts. In the non-source-oriented portions, listeners could find themselves impressed by the dynamic prowess of Newborn's orchestral posture, and the recording has aged well. The primary pair of themes is the concept's calling card, the main melody a snazzy, retro jazz punch of high style for brass band that carries over from the "Police Squad!" series. It is defined fully at both ends of "Main Title" but is otherwise diminished in the rest of the score, yielding to its own interlude sequence. That phrasing, which also returns from the series, becomes the investigation and loneliness theme for the main character, a sleazier alternative to the bright main theme in the jazzy realm. Emphasized on saxophones at 0:50 into "Main Title," this idea emerges with more confident style in "Drebin Takes a Snoop" and "To Ludwig's." It's hinted at the end of "Our Miss Spencer" and leads right into "Air Bag Drebin," and that attitude goes on briefly in "Anyone Can Be an Assassin." Muted trumpets and sax take it even slower in "Over the Shoulder Boulder Holder." Drebin gets another dedicated theme, this one for his ill-gotten praise for heroics. This pompous and silly military march for trumpets over ensemble hits and liberal percussion erupts at 0:27 into "Drebin the Hero." He tangentially also receives an identity of exoticism that follows him several places in the story, starting with token duduk and Middle Eastern percussion in "Beirut Vacation" to open the story. This motif also opens "Drebin the Hero" in suspense on strings and returns in the solitary "A Lonely Drebin" before gaining impressive, gong-aided size.

Newborn's love theme for The Naked Gun takes a few shapes but is generally a slow, whimsically jazzy identity for saxophone, almost a parody of John Barry steaminess of the era. Alluringly appealing in "Our Miss Spencer" and "Meat Miss Spencer," you hear this one fully developed in "The Seduction," where it smooths out to form a longer-lined identity. That fuller string theme returns briefly in "I'm a Lucky Woman" and continues on oboe and strings in "I Must Kill Frank" for a large-scale conclusion. Similar ideas carry the source-like jazz in "Cocktails for Five." The suspense and trigger motif for the villain's plot uses pulsating alternations with percussive thuds and a flute motif over the top, creating a very ominous atmosphere in "Beeper Mom" and "Beeper Doc." It returns to its roots for a longer crescendo of force in "The Third Out Beep" and goes whinier at the outset of "I Must Kill Frank." Singular moments of interest pepper the score in between these themes, including the almost Godzilla-level suspense in "Murder by Cake" and "Sting." Singular, lengthy action in "The Exciting Chase" features plenty of metallic percussion and brass, this mode transitioning into full-fledged variants during "Out on the Ledge" and "The Slaughterhouse." The rowdy honky-tonk action in "Somebody Killed My Scene" is tough to tolerate. The same could be said of the whole set of baseball-oriented organ music ranging from "Los Chapanecas" to "God Save the Queen," "La Raspa," and "Baseball Medley." Mixed into this section is the wonderfully awful Nielsen performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner (Studio Pre-Record)" and some rock source for "Blooper Vision." On album, only 16 minutes was pressed on Varèse Sarabande's 1991 CD also featuring the second score, with the love theme overemphasized. A limited 2014 set from La-La Land Records combined all three Newborn scores for the trilogy, and the same contents for The Naked Gun alone were rearranged for a 2023 commercial alternative from 1984/Rusted Wave. The end of "A Lonely Drebin" is cut off badly on the 2023 album after being better truncated on the 2014 presentation. The alternate takes of the love theme and main theme on the two longer albums offer better development to those ideas. Either of those expanded products will suffice for this affectionately silly score. The same sound continued largely unchanged in the 1991 sequel, better integrating the main theme at both its ends.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download