Consumer Guide Album

Popeye [Boardwalk, 1980]
The orchestrations are Kurt Weill meeting Lionel Newman at the Firesign Theatre, and the actor-vocals are as overheard as a Robert Altman soundtrack. Composer Harry Nilsson hasn't worked this hard since Schmilsson; arranger Van Dyke Parks hasn't worked this wisely since Song Cycle. So although nothing will appease my hunger for the glorious and inexplicably omitted "Everything Is Food," which I trust Neil Bogart will release as the B side of a disco disc, this beats Xanadu, Flash Gordon, and Urban Cowboy combined--as a movie, and as a piece of vinyl. A-