Manfred Mann Album: “Up the Junction [Bonus Track]”

(Correction to listing: this is not by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, but by the Mike d'Abo line-up of Manfred Mann.) In an era when most rock soundtracks consisted of a couple of songs and filler noodling, this one has focus and feel. The writing team of Manfred Mann and Mike Hugg came up with some of their most arresting melodies and arrangements for this one, making it a stand-alone work that lives outside the movie. The immortal title track is just one of the high points in this beautiful, moody, psych-jazz score. Fans of the group should replace their bashed-up vinyl copy with this superb-sounding CD. Fans of British pop who haven't heard it have a thrill in store.

I have had this soundtrack album for over 5 years on CD, and the music on it still moves me and makes me wish I could see the film that it was written for!

"Up the Junction" is fantastic opener, with evocative lyrics. You get the feeling that the person in the song is completely detached from the dull, work-a-day life he sees around him (or maybe high on LSD?). This feeling is sustained throughout many of the other tracks. It beams you back to the 1960s, a time of social upheaval and uncertainty.

When the chorus of "Up the Junction" brightly breaks through, it changes the vibe from introspective to pop perfection- almost like Brian Wilson did on some sections of his "Smile" album. So, the music feel moves from reflective to joyous. Manfred Man does this on "Walking around" as well, probably my favorite track. "Walking around" is pure excellence, with its yearning, dreamy melancholic verses abruptly interchanged with the bright, poppy chorus. It really works! The vocalwork is muliti-layered, complex and beautiful on other songs such as "Songs of love". Wonderful!

The instrumental work is great too, songs such as "Belgravia" have a slinky piano/vibrophone Jazz groove that makes you want to bust out your cocktail glasses. Then there are sort of collage tracks of atmospheric music, such as "Wailing Horn", starting off with complex drum work, which is then abruptly cut by a long sustaining piano chord (ala "Day in the life"), fading into a hammond organ with an amazing saxophone solo which could easily fit in with some of Sun-Ra's work.

I fully recommend this album to any fan of 60s music.

Hello Amazon and thank you again for your reliable service! This music by Manfred Mann is not only exciting but thought provoking which more than captures the time but times since then.

This Manfred Mann soundtrack album is really surprisingly good. The songs were written by drummer Mike Hugg and the music Hugg and Manfred Mann. The original album contained only four soungs, the rest were instrumentals; many of them variations over the theme song.

The title track is the stand out; one of the finest Manfred Mann Chapter Two recordings. Great melody with Beach Boys inspired harmonies and fine lyrics.

The other three songs are also good; two of them with my favourite Mann singer Mike dÁbo in front. Some band members obviously had ambitions towards jazz, which clearly shows on several of the instrumentals. I'm not much into jazz, but most of it sounds quite nice. In fact the Manfreds regularly recorded jazz-inspired music for their albums, B-sides and EP's.

Really interesting that 9 bonus tracks have been included. All them originally left in the can, and first released in 1997 on the "The Ascent of Mann" compilation. Some of them are really great and ought have been released in their time. Especially "Please Mrs. Henry", which at a certain point was considered a follow-up to "Mighty Quinn". "Sitting Alone in the Sunshine" and their version of "I Think It's Gonna Rain Today" also stand out.

Compared to the sound on "The Ascent of Mann" this release is a big step forward; much cleaner/clearer sound. All songs sound much better here.

On the negative side it should be mentioned the booklet contains no information about the songs ( composers ) or the creation of the music. Lyrics for all songs are included though; also the bonus-tracks.