Welcome to my third favourite Dune Soundtrack LP! Written and performed, mostly, by Toto, who you may remember from such epic radio jams as ‘Africa’ and ‘Hold the Line’! Look, the movie’s a bit confusing as the studio hired David Lynch then screwed around with his script and unfortunately it stars that fella from that band, but there’s big giant-y tapeworms in it! What’s not to like?!
Actually I’m being mean, Toto were absolutely consummate musicians who at one point were involved in no fewer than 42 of the Top 40 singles in the US charts during one particular week in 1982, possibly. The film is a dog’s dinner of compromised vision vs. commerce albeit with some really good bits in; a bit like life itself, I would proffer.
Not remembering the soundtrack at all from seeing all 17 hours of the 1984 film version, I was curious about it ever since I learned about a decade ago that it was written and performed by Toto*. Last year RSD 2020 gave me a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy Toto Dune on spice coloured vinyl**, with an enormous poster of the, not very good, LP cover thrown in.
Dune opens really well with ‘Prologue’ where Virginia Madsen^, Princess Irulan in the film rather handily narrates a precis of the first 100 pages-ish of the novel in 1:48. It’s geekily great and sets you up for a Bladerunner/Flash Gordon-style words and music style soundtrack, which never happens. The only other dialogue found here is to set the scene on ‘The Floating Fat Man (The Baron)’ to equally good affect. They miss a trick here, it isn’t a coincidence that Vangelis and Queen turned in two of my favourite ever sci-fi soundtracks that way.
But I digress, there are some really good atmospheric pieces here like the ‘Main Title’, the mildly jarring ‘Robot Fight’ and the tension heavy ‘The Box’. All is helped no end by the integration of the band’s sound with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marty Paich – father of Toto keys man David Paich.
Incidentally, as you may expect it is Paich junior who is the most prominent member of Toto on this album, along with Steve Porcaro; sci-fi soundtrack = keyboards. Although it has to be said that the excellent Jeff Porcaro also adds his swing to several tracks here.
It all leads to the absolute zenith of the LP, ‘Prophecy Theme’ by Brian Eno, Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois. It is a beautiful, shimmering piece of music, possibly my very favourite short Eno piece, very much in the mould of the previous year’s Apollo: Atmospheres And Soundtracks. Sorry Toto.
The second side of Dune offers us less. There are three tracks with the name of Sting’s character in the title, none of them are any good – surely Sting’s acting is not so abominable that this is a knock-on effect? I am not ruling it out. ‘Dune (Desert Theme)’ is rather good, stirring stuff albeit a little pedestrian and ‘Final Dream’ which features elements of the Vienna Volksoper Choir is darned epic.
Toto blow it for me with ‘Take My Hand’ which sounds uncannily like the musical backing for a Chicago B-side, thankfully before Peter Cetera had a chance to croon his mellifluous mush all over it.
Dune is an LP that really does have its moments, unfortunately for Toto, the very best of these belong to the Eno boys and the VSO. If only they had cobbled together some more sounds from the movie and stopped titling tracks ‘Paul …’ then it could have been even better.
I’m off to lick the spice coloured vinyl to see if I gain the ability to fold space.
1102 Down.
PS: Some insaniac has looped ‘Prophecy Theme’ for over three hours in this clip, now you have read this you are contractually bound to play it all the way through, thrice:
PPS: Since you ask Z’s version is my favourite Dune soundtrack.
*It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred fremen or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Arrakis
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had (ooh, ooh)
**a difficult to describe orange-y, beige as it happens. I really don’t see what the Navigator’s Guild see in the stuff.
^a major 1537 crush, mostly for Candyman and Sideways. (sighs wistfully).
