CineFile Video

From Nate Thompson’s now-defunct soundtrack blog 7 Black Notes:

“After officially buying Cannon Films from its British founders in 1979, Menaham Golan stepped behind the camera again for a colorful, widescreen musical spectacular, shot in Germany with a bizarre international cast including newbie Catherine Mary Stewart (’Night of the Comet’), future BBC staple Grace Kennedy, Joss Ackland (’Lethal Weapon 2′), and the wonderfully hammy Vladek Sheybal (’From Russia with Love’) as Mr. Boogalow, a satanic record producer who controls the world of pop culture in the futuristic year of 1994. The end result, ‘The Apple’, appalled audiences worldwide with its glam-rock fusion of biblical symbolism, dirty disco, and dieties descending from the sky in pimpmobiles, though it has more recently become a perpetual revival house and midnight movie favorite. The, uh, unique songs are the brainchild of Israeli popster Coby Recht and American composer George S. Clinton (who also appears onscreen as a mind-controlled reporter), later known for much bigger titles like ‘Austin Powers’, ‘Wild Things’ and ‘Mortal Kombat’. ‘Xanadu’ ain’t got nothin’ on this one, baby.”

Before it enjoyed its current midnight-movie revival and late night cable TV status, “The Apple” languished on Cinefile’s “Modern Musicals” shelf, thoroughly unwatched until one day, former Cinefile employee Cris noticed its colorful cover box, and popped it in, unaware of what he was in store for. Needless to say, he was instantly bowled over, and he proceeded to hound every last co-worker until we’d all seen it. I quickly became infatuated with the film’s jaw-dropping lyrics and faux futuristic inanities, and cobbled together an ad hoc soundtrack CD by ripping the audio from our old VHS rental tape. Eventually we tracked down an LP copy of the official version, probably the only album to have ever been released by Cannon Records! In comparing the two, I was disappointed by the LP version’s tendency to bathe every note of every song in a torrent of phase and flange effects, whereas in the video version, those effects are almost completely invisible. Also, the LP version does not contain every song, bit of extraneous dialogue or extended music cue that the video version does.

Later, I thought of re-recording the video version when “The Apple” finally came out on DVD, but decided against it. I guess I like that thick layer of tape hiss too much; it reminds me of that bygone era when VHS was king! Here, we offer both versions for download. You decide which one you like best.

“The Apple”, VHS audio version (ZIP file)
“The Apple”, LP version (ZIP file)

This entry was posted on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Movie Music Archives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.