It's Gonna Take A Montage

Ever since I was on a sweet little TV show with the word 'Beach' in the title, regular exercise has been a part of my life. It's pretty key to the whole actor lifestyle, since your body is your instrument and your 'look' is of prime importance. I also came out of the womb with high cholesterol, so keeping the ol' ticker in shape is mandatory. That being said, I'm pretty lazy. I'm the kinda guy that needs motivation during a workout, because running on a treadmill just isn't enough fun on it's own. I mean, staring at a wall and being alone with my own tortured thoughts is great, but it's a lot more fun to pretend I'm in the middle of a mid-eighties action/adventure/sports movie training montage.

Hence the music I more often than not listen to while running and/or repeatedly lifting heavy things.

I don't exclusively listen to pop-rock soundtracks produced between the years 1979 and 1991 whilst jogging, but when I do it's a freakin' blast. So, I thought I'd share some of my favourite synth-and-chinups tracks with my readers today - specifically those that might not be immediately recognized. Everybody knows Eye of the Tiger and You're The Best Around, but not as many people know Thunder In Your Heart from the soundtrack to the classic 1986 BMX film Rad.

Well, I say classic. I've never actually seen Rad. I've technically only ever seen the end credits of Rad because the copy of The Princess Bride I watched over and over again as a kid was taped off Superchannel, and Rad happened to be the movie on right before. As I was a little kid I for some reason always thought there was just a weird short film of hip teens doing wheelies at the beginning of The Princess Bride. My childhood confusion aside, Thunder In Your Heart is a fantastic addition to the Training Montage genre from dreamy Australian pop sensation John Farnham, who also sang You're The Voice. That chestnut is also pretty epic for workin' out too - replete with soaring bagpipes. It's like the wind really is whipping through my blonde mullet with this tune on in my headphones.

 On a similar note, Night Ranger's The Secret of My Success (1987) from the Michael J. Fox movie of the same name is exceedingly rad. I'd never even heard of this movie until a couple years ago, and it's actually kind of amazing. It's a completely nonsensical screwball comedy about Michael J. Fox, a mail-room clerk with preternatural business acumen, who takes over an abandoned office at his workplace so he can secretly be a businessman, mostly JUST BECAUSE HE LOVES DOING BUSINESS SO MUCH. The fact that no one catches on to Mike's Clark Kent/Superman routine earlier is pretty unbelievable. Doesn't HR need Fake-MJ's nonexistent social security number? That being said, the movie is actually quite a touching portrayal of a guy who will go to any lengths to be able to do what he loves to do for a living (which, as an actor, is a theme I can appreciate).

The title song is equally nonsensical (the secret of your success can't be that you're living twenty-five hours a day, Night Ranger. That's temporally impossible) but is super catchy and has a lot of great peaks and valleys, tempo-wise which is great for running outdoors.

My next recommendation, Fire, Inc.'s Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young, comes from the movie Streets of Fire (1984), which decided to keep having itself named after a Springsteen song even when Bruce turned down their request to use his music in the film. Instead, they turned to one of my favourite songwriters, Jim Steinman. He's the guy who wrote of Holding Out For A Hero, Total Eclipse of the Heart, and both Bat Out Of Hell albums for my man Meat Loaf.

The movie itself is ridiculous. Set in an alternate reality that's half-idealized-1950s-half-post-apocalyptic-1980s, it's about bounty-hunter Michael Pare rescuing his girlfriend, rock-star Diane Lane, from a biker gang leader played by a very young Willem Dafoe in bondage gear (seriously! He's so little he doesn't even get name-checked in the trailer!). Also, Rick Moranis is there as Diane Lane's manager and is doing his level best to play a tough guy and it's hilarious.

The song is classic Steinman, Wagnerian, epic, full of sweeping piano and twelve minutes long. His lyrics have always been about reclaiming a kind of lost faux 50s tough-guy youth and this song is no different - and that kind of epic machismo is pretty great for a workout. It's awesome.

Honourable mentions (neither of which are from soundtracks but should be) go to Billy Joel's I Go To Extremes, Gino Vanelli's The Time of Day (which I think is about saying no to drugs? Maybe?) and anything by Kenny Loggins, Journey, or Survivor. Seriously, a good, simple definition for music I like to work out to could be 'songs Kenny Loggins and Journey wish they were getting residuals for.'

And really, seriously, check out this trailer for Streets Of Fire. It's bananas. I'm so happy someone was lacking enough in their faculties to let that movie get made. Did I mention Michael Pare and Willem Dafoe have a sledgehammer fight at the end of the movie?! A SLEDGEHAMMER FIGHT.

Fanboy Friday: Top 007 Bond Songs

Welcome to the first edition of Fanboy Fridays here on Jetpack Wonder Stories. Every Friday I'm going to try to write about something nerdy that I like, because I'm a huge dork and also like alliteration. Thus;

I have a special fondness for the James Bond franchise. When I was but a wee tween back around the turn of the century, the Connery/Moore/Dalton films (on glorious VHS) were a staple during summers at my cottage when we'd finally exhausted the supply of half-decent movies available at the video store in town. Around the same time I used to spend the summer making epic feature-length films in the backyard with my Dad's camcorder. When I re-watch them for giggles I can definitely see just how much the genre conventions and plotting of the 007 films influenced my young writerly mind.

And the songs. The songs. During this same period, my taste in music hadn't yet evolved into anything more than a protoplasmic ooze. The six cassettes I owned in the summer of 1999 were the original Broadway cast recording of The Buddy Holly Story, the Phantom Menace soundtrack, two greatest hits collections (the Mamas and the Papas and Louis Armstrong, respectively and bizarrely), and, of course, a two-cassette collection of the main title songs from the James Bond films. Thus, that world of blaring brass sections and wailing melodrama had a significant influence on my taste in, and love of, music. When a new 007 movie comes out, I'm almost as excited about there being a new opening titles sequence as I am about the film itself.

In honour of the just-released Skyfall (run, don't walk, to your local cinetorium and see it. Really.) and the fact that I've now published a blog on the internet and thus my opinion matters (I am definitely 100% qualified for this), I bring you my top double-oh-seven Bond Songs (see what I did there? Ha! Ha! Ha.)

In descending order!

#007. K.D. Lang - Surrender (Tomorrow Never Dies)
Surrender is an almost perfect Bond song, which is sad, because it was bumped to the end credits of Tomorrow Never Dies in favour of Sheryl Crowe's kinda-satisfactory theme tune. Penned by David Arnold (score composer for all the Brosnan and some of the Craig entries), it's full of brass and very blatantly recalls the classic John Barry themes from the Connery era.

#006. A-Ha - The Living Daylights
I'm a big New Wave fan and I've always been kinda confused as to where exactly that predilection came from. Recently I've decided that A-Ha's The Living Daylights is definitely (at least in part) to blame. I specifically remember playing Game Gear games with this song on my Walkman and feeling like a complete little nine-year-old badass.

#005. Adele - Skyfall
I wish I'd called this sooner, because Adele doing a Bond song makes pretty much every kind of sense. Her voice is a perfect successor to Shirley Bassey's work on Goldfinger and Skyfall is an impeccable song right from the opening horn thing.

#004. Shirley Bassey - Goldfinger
Speaking of which, this song is a classic in every sense of the word. Big, brassy, lyrics that are pretty much literally about the plot of the film - it's great. Also, I'm indebted to John Barry's Goldfinger soundtrack in general for being such a heavy influence on the excellent Janelle Monae.

#003 - Chris Cornell - You Know My Name (Casino Royale)
I hate Soundgarden. There is nothing at all interesting about them. That being said, Chris Cornell can hang out at my house and drink my beer for as long as he wants for writing this song. "Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" is one of my favourite lyrics from any Bond tune, and a go-to watchcry of mine if I ever need a shot in the arm of sticktoitiveness and/or pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstrapsitiveness.

#002. Carly Simon - Nobody Does It Better (The Spy Who Loved Me)
I am not a big fan of the more ballad-y Bond theme tunes (Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, et cetera), but this song... is perhaps one of my favourite songs ever, even more than my #1 pick. Nobody Does It Better is an incredibly sexy song and is excellent even out of the context of being a Bond song. Just like...

#001. Paul McCartney & Wings - Live and Let Die
...this song. Nothing will top this song. Pretty much the first rock-and-roll James Bond theme, it is still, to this day, absolutely and utterly fantastic. The fact that it gets airplay outside of being a James Bond theme does it so much credit - it is objectively a fantastic song in its own right, and has been the best of influences on later songs in the series, from A View to a Kill to You Know My Name (which is heavily influenced by it.)

Honourable mentions go to Duran Duran's A View to a Kill for also being partially responsible for introducing me to New Wave, Tina Turner's Goldeneye for being written by Bono and the Edge (I love U2. Deal with it, internet), and Madonna's Die Another Day for being objectively one of the worst songs ever recorded and yet incredibly, insufferably catchy.

Oh, and this. You're welcome. See you next friday!