Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Rolling Stone OCTOBER 20, 1988 - by David Handelman

VARIOUS ARTISTS: MARRIED TO THE MOB

It comes as no surprise that the soundtrack to director Jonathan Demme's Married To The Mob is one of the most consistently pleasing and thoughtful releases of the year, soundtrack or otherwise. Demme's films have never been more than cult hits, but if he's ever stuck without funds for filming he should consider taking over a record label; the songs and groups featured in his last two movies reveal an impeccable sense of taste and fun. The soundtrack to Something Wild worked as an artistic whole, featuring such inspired match-ups as David Byrne with Latin star Celia Cruz and the Fine Young Cannibals with a Buzzcocks song. Its only fault was brevity: it barely dipped into the fifty songs actually heard in the film.

For the soundtrack to Married To The Mob, executive producer Demme and music supervisors Gary Goetzman and Sharon Boyle assembled a melange of new cuts - from both underappreciated talents like Chris Isaak and bigger acts like Sinead O'Connor, Ziggy Marley and the Tom Tom Club. The albums overriding tone is hip hypnotic, from the guitar jangling of The Feelies' Too Far Gone to the quirky disco-beat alienation of Goodbye Horses, by a New York cabbie named Q. Lazzaros.

The collections highest achievement is coaxing the first great performances from Debbie Harry and Brian Eno since their respective heydays: Harry's irrepressible cover of The Castaways' Liar, Liar deserves to be a smash, and Eno's layered version of William Bell's You Don't Miss Your Water makes a gorgeously haunting album closer. All that's missing is the score David Byrne composed for the film and the wonderful vintage mambos. If this record starts making cents, maybe next time Demme will be permitted a double album.