CREEM ONLINE: Easy Rider [Deluxe Edition]

Easy Rider [Deluxe Edition]
Original Soundtrack
2004 Hip-O

[Editor's note: The reissue of the motion picture soundtrack to Easy Rider is such a big deal, it took us three reviewers to get to the bottom of it.]

No other movie has had as much of an influence on this writer's life as Easy Rider. When I discovered it in high school (nearly 20 years after its release), it influenced the way I dressed, the way I talked, the music I listened to and my outlook on the world. I still watch it frequently on DVD, and I still haven't completely figured it out.

It has always been a bummer that the soundtrack was out of print for so long in this country, and this Universal reissue is good news. But the good news is tempered with some small disappointments.

It's hard to imagine a more perfect movie soundtrack. From the Steppenwolf one-two punch of "The Pusher" and "Born to be Wild" to the gorgeous shimmering Byrds cut "Wasn't Born to Follow" to the Jimi Hendrix anthem for the freak flag nation "If 6 Was 9," the songs are celebrations of freedom wrapped up in a giant fuck-you to straight society. It epitomizes the best of America.

But if the soundtrack is perfect, this reissue is not. The first disc is fine, with all the songs from the original album in the original order. But the second disc smells like a rip-off. The concept is ostensibly that these are other songs from the era. For the most part, these songs have been repackaged to death, and the best of them are on albums any self-respecting rock fan already owns. Yes, it's nice to hear Blue Cheer's "Summertime Blues." But why not just put on Vincebus Eruptum?

In a way, it's fitting that this repackaging is coming out at the same time as a similarly expanded Big Chill soundtrack. Because if Easy Rider summed up the potential of the Baby Boom generation, The Big Chill sums up how they ultimately blew it. At some point, we stopped hearing bold statements and started hearing excuses. Instead of manifestoes, we heard psychodramas. They blew it, and Captain America knew it way back when.

Listen, I'll go ahead and recommend buying this if you don't own the soundtrack. And I'm not going to give anybody a hard time for listening to the second disc. They're all good songs and well chosen. I'll probably listen to it myself.

But dammit, can you blame me for being a bit disappointed? The more-is-better approach to this package in some ways epitomizes the worst of America.

—Brian J. Bowe
March 2004

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that the word "fan" is an abbreviation of the word "fanatic." So with that said, please keep in mind that this review is written by an Easy Rider fanatic for other Easy Rider fanatics.

You know who you are. Like myself, you've seen the movie so many times that you have every line of dialogue memorized. Like myself, you bought the first paperback edition of the screenplay; the one with the color photo insert, not the second printing with the black and white insert. Like myself, you may have even gone to one of the first run showings in 1969 with a portable tape recorder and actually taped the entire movie in the theatre on two C-90 cassettes. And like myself, you wore out your original vinyl copy of the soundtrack album and then, to paraphrase a certain movie's tag line, you went looking for a copy of it on compact disc but couldn't find it anywhere.

Well, after years of searching, in 1985 I finally found a copy of Easy Rider on a Japanese import CD, MCA catalogue number MVCM-156. However upon playing it I was dismayed to find that, unlike the split second timing that originally appeared on the vinyl version, there now was a large two second gap between the end of track one ("The Pusher") and the motorcycle beginning of track two ("Born To Be Wild").

And so, after waiting almost twenty years for someone to fix this grievous error, we now have the official 35th anniversary edition and.the gap between tracks one and two is now a whopping THREE SECONDS LONG. What were these people thinking? Didn't anyone bother to listen to the original vinyl version? No, of course not: they were too busy adding a second cash-grab disc of songs that never even appeared in the movie.

So unless you (a) have the money to buy this butchered album; (b) the time to copy it to your hard drive; (c) the ability to manually edit three seconds from the end of the first track; and then (d) the wherewithal to reassemble and burn the corrected album back onto a blank disc, I'd just say no to this unwanted aural atrocity.

You know, this used to be a hell of a good soundtrack. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it.

—Jeffrey "Captain Canada" Morgan
March 2004

Not only the soundtrack for the film with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, but the soundtrack for my teens, as I am sure it was with most growing up in those FM radio free-form years that followed. This was the perfect companion to the other nine records in my collection, Abbey Road, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Hendrix Smash Hits, among the chosen few. Disc one stays true to the vinyl issue as far as song selections. When it was originally released, some songs had to be replaced from the movie versions. The Band opted out and were replaced by the Holy Modal Rounders, but hell if I remember why. The Band's version of "The Weight" shows up on disc two. The high point, as always, "If You Want to be a Bird?" I can see Jack's arms flapping now.

Continuing in the "spirit" of those free from radio years, "Something in the Air" the title of disc two, which plays like an episode of Little Steven's radio show, sans his anecdotal thematic narrative. Although at times it does tend to hit a bit more on the "earthy" side of that original underground. Highlights here? Well, Blue Cheer of course, and "Mendocino." It would be a spot on copy of Li'l Steve's show had they included some cool sound bites, say the Phil Spector drug deal, but then again that wouldn't be very anti-establishment, now would it?

—Dr. Robert
March 2004