Sound: As you can gather by the movie’s title, “Pineapple Express,” many of the songs on the soundtrack are related to the citrus fruit creating an island feel permeating from the melodies, even though the movie, which is due out on August 8, does not take place anywhere near where pineapples are grown. Still, the soundtrack garners island-textured melodies that exclude a calypso groove like Eddy Grant’s pop tune from the '80s, “Electric Avenue,” Peter Tosh’s bubbly Caribbean-laden “Wanted Dread And Alive,” and Brother Nolan’s reggae curried “Coconut Girl.” The coupes of jazz horns and bolts of orchestral tones in Moondog & The London Saxophonic's track “Bird’s Lament” have light-hearted trajectories, and Spiritualized’s soft techno falls along “I Didn’t Mean To Hurt You” have breezy folk motifs. The two electro-pop instrumentals, “Pineapple Chase” and “Pineapple Fight,” are composed by Graeme Revell and offer figurative movements which allow the listener to picture the action that is going on in the film, and the dance track “Poison” by '80s pop artist Bell Biv Devoe leave a pleasing impression on the listener’s mind. Mountain’s hard rock pushpins rumpling the melodic flow of “Don’t Look Around” does not fit the typical balmy island profile of the other tunes, but it gives the compilation a certain heaviness that the other songs lack, and the Huey Lewis & The News track, “Pineapple Express,” which leads the album, is a fun-bopping, pop-lashing tune that is adorned with everything that fans have ever loved about this band back in the '80s. // 8
Lyrics and Singing: The lead track “Pineapple Express” lays out the story line for the movie: “We got trouble / We got to get out of here / I’ve got you, you’ve got me / We are as high as high can be / That’s all right / How did we get into this mess.” It’s not the first time that Huey Lewis & The News was called upon to deliver the theme song to a motion picture. The band did it back in 1985 for the Michael J. Fox comedy, “Back To The Future.” // 7
Impression: The songs on the “Pineapple Express” soundtrack are mostly geared towards projecting an island getaway. A lot of the music has reggae and calypso motifs with a few rap tunes stacked in the shuffle like Cypress Hill’s “Dr. Greenthumb” and Public Enemy’s “Lost At Birth,” but over all, it is a commercial pop album. And leading that path is the title track from Huey Lewis & The News. // 8
- Susan Frances aka sweetpeasuzie (c) 2013
