Search - John Carpenter :: John Carpenter - Greatest Hits V.2

Somewhat Disappointing Followup To Volume One

Mr. | USA | 05/14/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"After experiencing the wonderful assortment of music given from the 1st volume of John Carpenters Greatest Hits, I was more than anticipating an exciting followup to this marvelous CD. Sadly, Volume Two is a mixed bag, folks. It starts out good with 7 tracks from Carpenter's score of Christine, though it neglected to include a favorite of mine, Obsessed With The Car. But other than a few token tracks from Prince Of Darkness (The Devil Awakens) and Escape From New York (The Duke Arrives/The Barricade, Everyone's Coming To New York) what remains is music from Halloween 4 & 5, both composed and conducted by Alan Howarth, and having nothing to do with Carpenter, other than creating the original Halloween theme himself. What's funny is Carpenter conducted the music for Halloween 3, but that music is not included on either Volume, which I find quite strange. If Varase Sarabande truly wanted to give us a Greatest Hits Volume 2, they should have waited until more scores were available in their catalog (aka Body Bags & Village Of The Damned) or better yet, if they're willing to include Alan Howarth selections, why not give us tracks from other Carpenter films he did not score, such as The Thing, by Ennio Morricone, Starman, by Jack Nitzsche, or even Memiors Of An Invisible Man, by Shirley Walker. At least they're from Carpenter's own movies. You just can't help but feel cheated when you buy a CD that says "John Carpenters Greatest Hits Volume Two" and find that only 10 out of 18 tracks are actual Carpenter originals...that's just barely over half the CD content. So unless you're a Carpenter completest like myself, owning the Christine score is good enough. And Varese Sarabande, you would do well to re-release this Greatest Hits series and include the music of John Carpenter you missed the 1st time(Halloween 3, Body Bags, & Village Of The Damned). Oh, and for those of you who don't realize, the scores for Assault On Precinct 13, Big Trouble In Little China, They Live, In The Mouth Of Madness, Escape From L.A., Vampires, and Ghosts Of Mars are not owned by Varese Sarabande, so they cannot be included with this material, unless some co-ownership were worked out, but don't hold your breath on that happening. John Carpenter truly deserves a Greatest Hits Collection worthy of his talent. Perhaps, one day, a box set will come along that delivers the goods and shows us all of Carpenter's true greatness. I await that day."