OST - Top Gun (1LP/Picture Disc)
Top Gun – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is pure 1980s blockbuster excess, combining huge pop songs, power ballads and glossy rock with one of the decade's most iconic films. Released in 1986 alongside the Tom Cruise movie, the soundtrack became an enormous success in its own right and remains inseparable from the jets, aviator sunglasses and high-speed action of Top Gun.
Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" provides the perfect opening blast and has become virtually synonymous with the film, while Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" supplies its romantic counterpart. The album also features Loggins' "Playing with the Boys", alongside tracks from Cheap Trick, Loverboy, Miami Sound Machine and other artists who capture the polished rock and pop sound of the era.
The soundtrack works because it never does anything by halves. Guitars are enormous, drums are enormous and even the ballads feel designed to fill a cinema. Harold Faltermeyer's instantly recognisable "Top Gun Anthem", featuring guitarist Steve Stevens, adds another defining piece of music to a collection packed with moments that immediately bring the film to mind.
Unashamedly big, glossy and enormously entertaining, Top Gun is both a classic movie soundtrack and a near-perfect snapshot of mainstream music in the mid-1980s. Put on "Danger Zone" and subtlety really isn't the point.