ALBUM: The Rose (1978)
MVC Rank: 3.5/$$
I saw this movie many years ago. Good date movie. Not so great a soundtrack, though, unless the idea of live songs by studio musicians trying to sound like the boozy Janis Joplin and her various boozy bands appeals to you.
The soundtrack is noisy. Sure if they are ‘loosely’ basing this on Joplin, you expect some blues based rock and roll and there is — but it is as if the musicians and director were trying too hard to channel Joplin and her mythology. So we got noisy rock live in concert. Stuff Like “Whose side are you on” and ‘Love Me with a Feeling.’
Don’t get me wrong Midler has a strong powerful voice. But Janis was a force of nature, hard to emulate and that’s why they say it was only loosely based on Janis. So here we get snippets of the Rose, played by Midler, of drunken, drugged- out ramblings between songs and then .. then… there’s the title track. She snaps out of unconciousness somehow and delivers a beautiful poignant ballad that gave goose bumps to the movie audience.
The last song on the album, the name of the movie, the name of the character. It’s the best thing about it all.
The slow building ballad played too much on the radio in 1978, but that doesn’t take away its power. The song was my future wife’s favorite song when we decided we liked each other. We were seniors in high school, and like I said: Good date movie.
My recommendation is get the movie, not the soundtrack.