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Amazon.com: The early-'60s pop group The Wonders never existed outside of That Thing You Do, Tom Hanks' feature-film directorial debut--but a lot of bands like them sure did. If you've seen the movie, I defy you to resist the title song--a perfect pop confection that captures the musical spirit of the era (and the high spirits of the movie) with cleverness and glee. (The deadpan "historical" liner notes are priceless.) The first song, "Lovin' You Lots and Lots" (written by Hanks himself) is a hilariously awful example of the insipid "grown-up" pop Muzak of the mid-'60s (performed by the Ray Coniff-like "Norm Wooster Singers"), but the element of parody in these tracks is suffused with affection. And, dammit, these are some really catchy toe-tappers! In addition to some other Wonders hits (not the least of which is "Shrimp Shack," from their first movie appearance in Weekend at Party Pier), there's also a girl-group single ("Hold My Hand, Hold My Heart" by the Chantrellines); a teen hearbreak anthem ("My World is Over" by Diane Dane); "one of the seminal jazz recordings of 1958" ("Time To Blow," by Del Paxton) ... and much, much more! --Jim Emerson
Customer Reviews:
- That Thing You Do: CD: That Thing You Do is a film made in 1996 so it is twelve years old now. I am a Tom Hanks fan and I think Liv Tyler is a real sweetie as is her character in this film. I am amazed that Tom and a few others wrote every tune in the film and that all of the tunes sound as though they are actually from the sixties. I have the DVD and the CD sound track. I enjoy both very much.
The sound track is a fair representation of the music in the film and if you like the sixties stuff, you will thoroughly enjoy the excellent music and lyrics. These tunes are so catchy they stay in your head for a long time.
Way to go, Tom Hanks! - A Playtone Release! That Thing You Do soundtrack: Absolutely delightful. The Wonders (One-ders?) tracks are short and sweet: Dance with me tonight, I need you (that thing you do), That thing you do
Its not to be taken seriously. Hence you have a truly bad song shooting off the album; even worse than the Brothers Four! But "Lovin you lots and lots" is a satire of all the banal pop of the time (at least till those one hit Wonders came along!)
So you get all styles, even in the Wonders! All My Only Dreams is a perfect B-side to That Thing You Do, indeed it could be a better song (though not as snappy!) - its a nice change of pace to the rock
Mr Downtown, Time to Blow, Drive Faster - you got r&b, jazz, surf
Of course its a Play Tone release - a nice collection of their Galaxy of Stars
Just play it through. It'll grow on you. Even the stinker at the start (the horrid Norm Wooster Singers track) might even grow on you, though lyrically it doesn't really go anywhere
The best song on the album is probably I Need You (That Thing You Do)(played over the closing credits). Though the rest of the Wonders material is so catchy its ridiculous..
Absolutely wonderful. Buy it buy it!
Oh yeah, the extended cut of the film is One-
der ful too! (half hour longer - whoo hoo! - Loved the movie so much I had to have the soundtrack: This is a great collection of "feelgood" music! It gave me a chance to listen to entire songs which I only heard in part when I watched the film for the first time. This was some great music for tooling down the road while in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia...
- Love the movie...Love the music: Bought this for my wife & she loves it! It's one of her all time favorite movies & she just loves the music that goes along with it. Definitely a keeper!!!
- 'That Thing You Do' - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Sony): Review no. 92. I've seen the movie many times but this was the first time I ever got to check out the soundtrack CD. Very good. Even if The Wonders had existed strictly on celluloid, here it really makes no difference. So, they went Monkees and Partridge Family on us. So what? Point is the music on this fifteen track disc is really great and uplifting to listen to. You get a few songs from other fictitious artists that made an appearance in the film like Freddy Fredrickson, the aging glamour girl Diane Dane, Captain Geech And The Shrimp Shack Shooters and of course drummer Guy Patterson's mentor Del Paxton. Whole thing seems to occur between spring and summer, 1964. I really dug "She Knows It" by Jimmy's post-Wonders band the Heardsman - you know where in the closing credits you see it noted that the Heardsmen had went on to record three gold albums for Playtone Records. Recommended.
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