This Month's Thrift Store Vinyl Sharity

Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr., with vocals by Melanie, Chris Morgan, and Christopher, R.P.M. Original Soundtrack (Bell Records, 1970)


The album cover and, as it turns out, most of the marketing materials make a big deal of providing an asterisked note reminding us that R.P.M. stands for Revolutions Per Minute. An obvious fact, hardly worthy of such promotional grandstanding. But wait--there's a subtle point being made, for we're not talking about that rotating turntable, but the issues of social and political revolution so intrinsic to the film's late-sixties campus setting.

Of course, school protests do not a revolution make, but as I haven't seen the movie, I'll reserve judgment. However, there are pretty clear signals as to the general approach of R.P.M. For example, Ann-Margaret stars as the graduate-student girlfriend of Anthony Quinn's college president (that's appropriate). The soundtrack includes a song titled "We Don't Know Where We're Goin'" (As in, hey, where's all this rebellion leading us? Um, away from a failed military strategy, maybe? Into a more inclusive representational political practice? Oh, I'm sorry. ). The album tracks themselves suggest a plot climax surrounding a riot and no doubt some lessons learned thereafter--I just wonder if there is some sort of token death involved, the sacrifice of an innocent or, better yet, a radical who recants on his or her deathbed.

Neither IMDB nor The New York Times seem to like the film much, but this site thinks it is an also-ran among the great cult films of the 1970s. If that really were true, wouldn't Karen Black be in it?

The soundtrack is okay: I'm not a big Melanie fan, and she has two songs on side one. The Christopher and Chris Morgan tracks remind me of vocalists on those old Pickwick cover albums--competent studio efforts. blaxploitation.com likes a few tracks, mainly "All Night Long" and "The Riot" on side two, and reminds us that De Vorzon composed "The Theme from SWAT" (which was one of the first 45s I ever bought, oddly enough).

The tracks, in Scratch-Y-Sound, along with the art, are in one .zip file at rapidshare.com.