Meet George Jetson -- and Tiffany, too!
Written: Aug 05 '01 (Updated Aug 05 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It has three of the hardest-to-find songs performed by Tiffany.
Cons: The rest of the CD is by artists few have heard of.
The Bottom Line: Tiffany fans need this to complete their collections; others probably have little need to seek this out, though there are a few nice songs on it.
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| dtobias's Full Review: Jetsons: The Movie by Original Soundtrack |
Since it was not a very big success, either commercially or critically, only a minority is even aware that there was an animated Jetsons feature-length theatrical movie. Even fewer are familiar with its soundtrack CD, which has been out of print for about a decade. However, for fans of the then-teenage singer Tiffany, this CD is one of the hard-to-find keys to a complete collection of her music.
Jetsons: The Movie was announced in the late 1980s, while Tiffany was enjoying great success as a teen pop star. The producers evidently felt that including her in the movie would enhance its success. Originally, Tiffany was just to be featured in song, not doing a speaking-voice part -- the voices were all cast, mostly by the original voices from the TV series -- but her manager, George Tobin, insisted that she be given the voice role of daughter Judy Jetson, so the producers ultimately gave in and bumped original voice Janet Waldo in Tiffany's favor.
Unfortunately for everyone concerned, by the time the movie came out in the summer of 1990, after some delays due to problems with the animation quality, Tiffany was no longer popular (and was no longer being managed by George Tobin, either), so her music was no help to the popularity of the film, which got bad reviews and hasn't been much heard from since (though it's still available on video). Tiffany did still have some fans who liked the three songs she did, and over the years her fan base has gradually organized on the Internet -- there are now a number of fan websites and mailing lists devoted to her, and this is increasing now that she has a new album out -- so the soundtrack CD has an audience who avidly seeks it on such sites as Ebay.
The CD has 10 tracks in all, 3 of them performed by Tiffany and the remainder by other artists. None of the other artists have achieved any fame that I know of, so the Tiffany tracks are still just about the only reason that anybody seeks out this CD.
Here are the tracks:
1) We're The Jetsons (Jetsons Rap) -- XXL An attempt to "modernize" the Jetsons -- in the 1990 version of modernity instead of the show's original 1960 version -- by doing a "theme" in the form of rap music. I don't like rap, and this is no exception.
2) With You All The Way -- Shane Sutton I don't know who Shane Sutton is, or how old he was when he recorded this, but he sounds like a little boy, or at least somebody who sings in a high falsetto voice. Not really that good a voice, beyond the "kiddie cuteness", but it is a decently catchy song.
3) You And Me -- Tiffany The first of three Tiffany songs; a fast-rocking song. Grammarians will object that the line from which the title derives, "You and me were meant to be in love", really ought to be "You and I". It's still one of the better and more sophisticated sounding songs of Tiffany's "teen-pop" period.
4) I Always Thought I'd See You Again -- Tiffany Her second song; a light ballad this time. Pleasantly catchy.
5) Maybe Love -- Steve McClintock McClintock seems to be an associate of George Tobin's, and wrote some of the songs Tiffany sang in her albums produced by Tobin. Here, he performs one himself. He sings with a powerful, though not particularly exceptional, voice, and the song has a nice beat.
6) Stayin' Together -- Shane Sutton The second and final of Shane's songs, sung to a bouncy beat. Not really that memorable, though.
7) Through The Blue -- Gayle Rose Another singer I haven't heard of outside this soundtrack, though she's got a pretty good voice. It actually sounds like it's a duet, with an uncredited male vocalist in there along with Gayle. A pretty good mid-tempo song.
8) Mall Theme -- John Duarte An instrumental piece by the songwriter and keyboard player who was involved with much of Tiffany's music from the Tobin era. It has the distinction of being the only track on the CD that really makes any attempt to achieve an atmosphere of futuristicness, as the Jetsons concept would seem to demand. The rest of the tracks are just normal '80s-style pop music, already out of date in 1990, rather than any attempt to achieve a feel for the future, either an artist's current vision of what the future might sound like or an attempt to recapture the campy '60s "futuristic" feel of the original Jetsons series. Neither the music nor the lyrics have anything that sounds like anything beyond the 20th century. But the "Mall Theme" attempts musical experimentation, consisting of a big conglomeration of odd synthesizer effects strung together with a beat, but not much discernible melody. It appears to be Duarte's attempt to create a musical piece that might be from some as-yet-nonexistent style of a future century. It's not necessarily a good attempt -- it's not really very listenable -- but at least it's trying to do something that fits the movie's era.
9) Home -- Tiffany The third and final Tiffany song. A "power ballad", slow but with some strength. It has the widest vocal range of her three songs, though not quite as much catchiness.
10) Jetsons Main Title -- The Stunners Finally you get the classic Jetsons theme song, "Meet George Jetson..." This really ought to have been the opening track, instead of that rap stuff they started the CD with.
Recommended:
No
Great Music to Play While: Exercising
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dtobias
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Member: Daniel Tobias
Location: Boca Raton, FL
Reviews written: 167
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About Me:
A programmer and Internet developer who's been a "computer geek" for over 20 years now.
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