Album Review: America's Soundtrack Volume 1
America250, the non-profit organization created by Congress in a vain attempt to celebrate the Semiquincentennial in a way everyone would like, just released the first volume of a soundtrack for the celebration, albeit twelve days after the event actually took place. The album was produced by multiple Grammy Award-winning musician and producer Emilio Estefan and includes songs from a wide scope of American music. I will look at the history of these songs and give my opinion on its success as an album.
The first song on the album is “Celebration” (1980) by Kool & The Gang, ostensibly because America was celebrating its birthday now thirteen days ago. I would have expected a more traditional choice like “The Star-Spangled Banner”, “God Bless America”, or “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, but none of those songs made the cut on this album. The hit song is a great way to start a 1980s-themed party, hit the US Billboard Hot 100, and has since been placed on the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. However, to someone of my generation, the song feels dated, neither contemporary nor classic.
The largest category of songs seemed to be “Has America in the Title”. These included “America (English Version)” (2026) by Gloria Estefan, “Living in America” (1985) by James Brown, and “American Promise” (2026) by Karen LeFrak. Despite the similarity in theme, each song had a completely unique style. Besides being the wife of the producer, Estefan is known as the “Queen of Latin Pop”, has won multiple Latin Grammy awards, and was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Brown is the “Godfather of Soul”, although he has also been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. LeFrak is a former classical music prodigy turned lifelong performer whose song appears on her latest album, also called American Promise, where she performs not with the Boston Pops, the National Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, or any of the hundreds of other orchestras of all sizes in the United States, but with the London Symphony Orchestra instead.
Two songs fell into the category of “I Guess Emilio Estefan Just Likes These”. Carlos Santana performed “Maria Maria” (1999), an award-winning party song influenced by rock, hip hop, Latin, and the musical West Side Story. The most confusing song was “Ventura Highway” (1972) by the confusingly named band America, where the lead singer kept talking about seeing alligator lizards in the air. I imagine this was a highly popular song during the 200th anniversary of America, but the references were lost on me even as a pop culturally aware historian.
The final major category was “Coastal Urban City”. Tony Bennett sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” (1962), while Billy Joel (1976) described his “New York State of Mind”. While these are highly popular songs created by talented musicians deserving of their awards and acclaim, I get tired of the mainstream media focus on areas with high density populations near an ocean. Plenty of American songs focus on the small town / rural and Midwestern / Southern experiences. Could not one of those have been included? I will impatiently wait for future volumes, but I am not holding out much hope.
Two songs did not fit into the implicit categories on the album. “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was expertly sung by the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, which they had sung at their pair of July 5 concerts staring Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid as the guest narrator, possibly the most American sentence I have written to date. I will have to listen to their Spirit of America album in the near future. The only song left to describe was a product placement, “I’d Like to Buy America a Coke” by the Coca-Cola Company Choir. I was hoping for a gentle update of the famous 1971 hilltop commercial, but the song only briefly referenced the original.
In conclusion, this album left me more disappointed the celebratory. Maybe it was the timing of the release or the fact that it felt more like a retiree’s playlist (complete with an ad break) than a balanced representation of American music. I will listen to future volumes as they are released to see if these make the soundtrack feel more complete.