Various Artists — Destination Forbidden Planet
Destination Forbidden Planet is a compilation focusing on space/ sci-fi themed music from the 1950’s- be it rock ‘n’ roll, easy listening, Sci-fi B movie scores/ TV themes, quirky pop, and even a few trailers. The single CD features a whooping thirty-seven tracks/seventy-nine minutes of playtime, and I must say it’s a nicely consistent and varied compilation, with a lot of tracks that I’d never heard before.
The CD comes presented in a jewel case, and this features a glossy and colourful inlay booklet, this runs twenty pages- featuring a short write-up for each of the tracks, cover artwork, and tacky space focused ads/ pictures from the 1950s. All in all, a nicely presented/ informative package.
We kick off in fine dramatic and menacing form with the instrument track “Visitors From Space”- with its brooding orchestration and malevolent alien electronic elements- the tracks is by Dick Jacobs & His Orchestra, and taken from the soundtrack for 1959’s It Came From Out Of Space. As we move through the comp, we come to Louis Prima’s “Beep! Beep” with jiving keys, bopping horns, and quirky bleeping ‘n’ beeping electronics. There’s the bounding rock ‘n’ roll -meets-surf guitar, wavering male harmonizing, and sampled manic laugher of The Gamblers “Moon Dwang”. We have the boot stamping garage rock and crude horn honking of “Jupiter-C” by Pat & The Satellites.
Moving onto the second half of the disc- and we have cascading piano meets dusty rock ‘n’ roll of “First Man On Mars” by Jackie Fautheree. There’s the mid-paced wavering doo-wop of The Jive Fives “People From Another World”. We have the strutting grooving, almost spoken word male singing, and weird high wailing female backing vocals of Merv Griffin’s “The Screaming Meemies From Planet X”.
I have always been a sucker for a good, themed compilation, and I must say Destination Forbidden Planet is a gooden. If you enjoy Cherry Red’s Lux And Ivy collections, you'll be as happy as a pig in you know what with this release!.