General Article name: Little Shop of Horrors [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
Genre: Soundtrack / Filmmusik Product type: LP (Vinyl) Label: Geffen US Number of tracks: 13 Tracklist LP - 1 Mitchell, Bill - Prologue (Little Shop Of Horrors) (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 3:31 Weeks, Michelle - Skid Row (Downtown) (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 4:17 Moranis, Rick - Da-Doo (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 1:26 Moranis, Rick - Grow For Me (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 2:25 Greene, Ellen - Somewhere That's Green (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 3:51 Weeks, Michelle - Some Fun Now (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 2:19 Martin, Steve - Dentist! (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 2:29 Stubbs, Levi - Feed Me (Git It) (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 3:27 Moranis, Rick - Suddenly, Seymour (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 3:29 Stubbs, Levi - Suppertime (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 2:06 Moranis, Rick - The Meek Shall Inherit (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 3:23 Stubbs, Levi - Mean Green Mother From Outerspace (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 4:49 Little Shop Of Horrors Chorus - Finale (Don't Feed The Plants) (Little Shop Of Horrors/Soundtrack Version) 1:32   Description Description

In 1978 Alan Menken and Howard Ashman created a new musical take on Roger Corman's 1960 film Little Shop Of Horrors, which became a Broadway hit. Both involve a man-eating, Venus flytrap-inspired plant named Audrey II, raised in a skid-row flower shop into a massive beast with excessive chloroplast (testosterone?) levels. Though the film was inventive and campy, Menken and Ashman's music music - a mix of doo-wop and lavish songs along the lines of Rocky Horror Picture Show -- made the show's fun hilarious, its thrills outrageously gruesome. The soundtrack to Frank Oz's 1987 film adaptation carries on the musical's spirit: Steve Martin's rendition of "Dentist," about a demented psychopath who drills mouths (not just teeth) without novocaine, is achingly funny. "Downtown" is a full-powered choir of the slums; Rick Moranis works for an uptight flower shop manager ("He took me in, gave me shelter, a bed, crust of bread and a job, treats me like dirt and calls me a slob, which I am.") Martin and Moranis' sincere if limited singing is charming, and Ellen Greene returns as the original Audrey from the Broadway version; the way she belts out earth-shakingly high notes is bewildering, particularly on the lovely duet with Moranis, "Suddenly Seymour." The Four Tops' Levi Stubbs is a scene-stealer as Audrey II, particularly on the new track, the raunchy, boisterous finale "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space"; since film nominations must be new songs, it was added in hopes of an Academy Award (and did indeed receive a nomination.) When Disney added a tribute to Howard Ashman on the Beauty and the Beast credits after his death in 1992, it read: "To Ashman who gave a Mermaid her voice and a Beast his soul." He also gave a plant its appetite. ~ Peter Fawthrop

Peter Fawthrop

Contributors Artist: Howard Ashman Record Label: Polydor Record Label: Geffen