A few months back, The A.V. Club reported on Night Fever Music’s re-issue of the Fright Night soundtrack. Today, the album finally hits store shelves, and Night Fever has shared two exclusive streaming tracks from the album: “Armies Of The Night” by art-rockers Sparks, and “Boppin Tonight” by the mysterious Fabulous Fontaines.
The Fright Night soundtrack is notable that in addition to Brad Fidel’s synthesizer score (which only a portion of appears on the record with vocals), the David Chackler-produced album featured pop and rock tunes written specifically for the “needle drops” in the film.
“Armies Of The Night” was written for the scene where Chris Sarandon’s Jerry Dandridge chases Charlie and Amy into the local discothèque. According to Chackler, “they came up with the title based off of the script.” Sparks always had a knack for pop hooks, but “Armies” is arguably the closest to Top 40 that Ron and Russell Mael got. The duo produced the track, and re-recorded it for their 1986 album Music That You Can Dance To in a slightly longer version with a few alternate lyrics.
“Boppin’ Tonight” was always one of the great mysteries of the Fright Night soundtrack. As it turns out, The Fabulous Fontaines weren’t a new wave-rockabilly band out of L.A. that got buried by a label and bad business decisions worthy of Behind The Music. Instead, the group was composed of producers Mike Piccirillo and Gary Goetzman. The soundtrack needed one more musical cue and didn’t have any more money, so the duo cranked out “Boppin’ Tonight” in a single session, and director Tom Holland approved. Piccirillo went on to write music for Saturday morning cartoons from DIC and Saban, while Goetzman went on to be Tom Hanks’ partner at Playtone. (It’s no coincidence that “Boppin’ Tonight” wouldn’t sound out of place on the That Thing You Do! soundtrack.)
While the glow-in-the-dark edition of the soundtrack sold out fast, copies are still available in 180 Gram Blue/White Evil Fog colored vinyl, the very cool picture disc featuring the 1985 poster art, and a new limited edition Blue/White Splatter on clear vinyl. The album can be purchased online or wherever records are sold.