Rocky

Rocky II

Music by Bill Conti

 

 

 

As one of the most representative soundtracks of its time, the music for Rocky (1976) inevitably included patterns of soul music, the strongest reference at the time. 

Once Rocky is set in Philadelphia, the called Sound of Philadelfia would be a natural choice for the musical background. The connection is clear in tracks like Reflections, the merging with orchestra in Butkus and in song You Take My Heart Away – barely heard in the film, in the Rocky and Adrian meeting. Surprising is the economy of musical motifs and the magic that Bill Conti succeeded, making the material sound like different themes through arrangements. The introspective First Date is also striking in its simplicity and immediate sympathy, but what really marked the film (and the time) are the marches and fanfares as Gonna Fly Now, Fanfarre For Rocky and the glorious The Final Bell, able to make you strike fifty one-arm pushups without complaint. Curious also is the suspicious resemblance of Going the Distance theme - recurring theme throughout the album – to Ernest Gold´s Exodus theme. In the "variation over the theme," Conti just added more notes between the main notes of the famous 1960´s tune. But that is an issue between the composers and their lawyers, what matters is that Rocky is an honorable representative of his time and the kind of catchy and efficient work that was never heard in later times. After its success and awards, it would be inevitable that Bill Conti was cast to compose for Rocky II (1979). It would also be inevitable that the music was a reflection of the first film themes, since the movie itself is practically a remake of the original scene by scene. Rocky II works more as a complement to the first soundtrack. Takes the main themes and expands it with more emphasis on orchestral language than pop reference. In that way, the music was rearranged in the form of suites as Conquest and Overture that integrate different passages of brass, rock rhythms and symphonic construction. The vocal number of dwo-woop in Two Kinds of Love is by the brother Frank Stallone and Vigil is the best moment, with the development of the beautiful theme First Date in a moving 8-minute suite for horn solos. Its greatest merit is the balanced fusion of idiom pop and orchestral writing.