Those who were lucky enough to see Transformers: the Movie in theaters when it premiered were lucky enough to bear witness to the most metal movie ever made. Large robots eradicating each other to loud rock music; nothing Michael bay did could ever truly compare to that.
Shifting between a synthesizer-heavy score from Vince DiCola and face melting rock songs from mostly unknown artists, Transformers ditched subtlety and went straight for the throat, and did it in the most memorable, catchiest, and just plain adrenalized way possible. From the opening guitar riff of a radically rewritten and beefed-up version of the Transformers theme song, it just didn’t let up. Every moment of the movie, every nuance of character or act of destruction was accompanied by music that not only served the moment, but built on it, to the point where song and scene are so entwined it’s impossible to separate.
I’ll be taking the songs according to track listing and not by the chronological appearance in the movie, and my copy is the 20th anniversary edition with more songs.
The Touch
This is the one you remember even if you don’t remember any of the others. This, to me, is the goosebump song. Every time I’ve watched this damn movie (and I’ve watched it plenty of times) when the first synth chords of this song open up I get goosebumps. I’ve gone on record as saying that cartoons based on properties I loved weren’t always satisfying because they were heavily watchdogged by parent’s groups. But this was PG-13. All bets were off and nobody was safe. The movie starts off with the extermination of a planet, after all, so this wasn’t Saturday morning. Optimus has never been cooler than when he tossed himself headlong into battle to the sound of this song, crushing Decepticons in his ride to his final battle. In a soundtrack full of catchiness, no song has a catchier chorus than this one. And the return of this song at the end brings the entire movie full circle and makes those goosebumps pop back up. Performed by Stan Bush, “The Touch” strikes the perfect balance of melancholy and anthem.
Instruments of Destruction
Megatron has never been more dangerous than his appearance during this song. I’ve always heard a distinctive Dave Mustaine quality in the vocals, less outright in the sound but moreso in the delivery, but that could be me. Another perfect match between on-screen happenings and song.
The Death of Optimus Prime
Spoiler alert.
Vince DiCola’s contributions to the soundtrack delivered both the necessary heart and weight to the destruction. If the entire soundtrack were composed of flippant rock/metal songs, then the heavier moments like the death of a childhood icon wouldn’t have resonated as much as they did. We had already seen our fair share of old favorites bite it, but this was Optimus Prime, after all. That just wasn’t supposed to happen. It was such a traumatizing thing for the millions of kids across the land that Duke’s death in the animated G.I. Joe movie was nixed. He was just in a coma, kids, and hey, he’s ok! This is a song that should be administered with Xanax, and it fits perfectly with a gloomy, rain-soaked day.
Dare
This is a trampoline soundtrack. What I mean by that is after the mournful track preceding it, we’re immediately popped back into an uplifting beat by what is probably the most positive and cheerful track in the movie. Coinciding with newcomer Hot Rod’s carefree ride, this is another insanely catchy song with a chorus that doesn’t let go. If you ended up humming that “Everything is Awesome” song from The Lego Movie for weeks after you saw it, the same thing happened here. This was another Stan Bush song, proving that he knew how to manipulate the crowd.
Nothing’s Gonna Stand in Our Way
“Dare” and this one are a one-two punch of catchy arena-ready anthems that raise the adrenaline. Performed by Spectre General — really a band named “Kick Axe” who was unceremoniously renamed for the Transformers soundtrack by the higher ups — this is not a song that could have been authentically written in any era other than the ’80s. You can smell the Final Net in it, and there’s spandex all over it.
The Transformers Theme
Speaking of hair metal, let’s run down a checklist. Psycho soloing. Air-warning vocals. Everything going to 11. Oh yes, this is a cartoon theme song run through a blender made of badass and poured into a glass made of holycrap. Exploding onto the screen after we just saw a planet get eaten, this screaming, screeching, bellowing version of the familiar “robots in disguise, more than meets the eyes” theme that we saw every weekday at 4 pm pretty much told us all what we were in for. Lion performed the hell out of this song.
Escape
Another masterful vince DiCola number, this is another mournful song that weaves in the strains of the Transformers theme song along with an extremely catchy and driving motif that returned several times over the course of the movie.
Hunger
Spectre General returns for another standard rocker featuring a catchy chorus and a grumbly guitar riff that once again matched-up perfectly with the on screen happenings of Kup and Hot Rod against Sharkticons.
Autobot Decepticon Battle
Vince DiCola returns with some returning motifs from his Escape, along with that driving bassline that if you’re familiar with the movie, you can probably hear in your sleep.
Dare to be Stupid
I always thought this was Devo. It wasn’t until I watched it on video for the first time back in the mid-’90s that I saw that this was Weird Al Yankovic, and it wasn’t until much later than that when I read that he did this song specifically in the style of Devo. So in a way I was both right and wrong. You gotta squeeze all the Charmin you can before Mr. Whipple comes around. Weird Al is an uncanny mimic and he nailed the entire feel and tone of a Devo song for it not actually being one. This is the oddest song on the entire soundtrack and provided the oddest on-screen accompaniment, but what the hell, if robots can’t have a dance party while things are going bad, then I don’t understand anything.
Unicron Medley
Vince back again with cold machine-like sounds along with a detached synth soundscape. Unicron was as alien as it got for this group of robotic aliens, and Unicron’s music perfectly mirrored that cold, aloof nature.
Moon Base 2 Shuttle Launch
Vince returns with that stunted bassline along with some errant noses and then brings in a strange kaleidoscope feel before returning to familiar territory. I like that way the musical themes repeat themselves in various parts of the songs while building on central concepts.
Megatron Must be Stopped
Instrumental metal with a Joe Satriani-ish guitar riff that sounds as evil as Megatron, capping off Vince DiCola’s dominance of this soundtrack’s non-vocal parts.
Transformers Theme (Alternate Version)
Vince and Stan team-up for a bigger and badder version of the traditional cartoon version of the familiar cartoon theme, eschewing the more hair-metalesque overtones of Lion’s version. Vince brings back all of the various themes and motifs that he had been utilizing throughout his synth-heavy score and brings them full circle and merges them into a solid performance.
Tranformers: the Movie was an oddity for a movie based on a toy line. While G.I. Joe, He-Man, and other properties all had feature length movies of their own, none of them managed to produce a brand new soundtrack that merged screen to sound in such exciting ways. Try to imagine this movie with a different soundtrack. You can’t. Somehow all the right elements converged and made something that would have been “good” into something that was “excellent.”
You can pick up the Soundtrack here