For the record, I'm probably one of the very few North Americans who never bothered to see "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure". The idea of two righteous dudes flying through time and space didn't particularly appeal to me at the time, although I've seen a lot of Keanu Reaves' subsequent movies such as "Speed", the "Matrix" series and "John Wick". At this point, it's amazing to realize that one of Hollywood's most famous Torontonians got his big break in a comedy, but then again, a lot of folks had started paying attention to Tom Cruise when he was playing an in-over-his-head teen in the comedy "Risky Business" some years earlier.
Still having not seen the picture, I was also surprised by the opening credits of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure". For a movie about a couple of high-flying teens, the credits were pretty abstract in image, to say the least. And the opening song was also a surprise since though I had already known about it for a few years, I'd had no idea that it was used here.
I'm talking about Australian band Big Pig's "Breakaway" from November 1987. This is the only song that I know by them, and that's because the song and the video were quite striking. In fact, I had been searching for any sign of "Breakaway" on YouTube for years until I finally found it (it didn't help that I couldn't quite remember the band's name at the time).
"Breakaway" showed up on Canada's MuchMusic channel and I only saw it once or twice but it left quite an impression with tightly coiled spring vocalist Sherine Abeyratne and the rest of her crew dressed up in factory aprons lying on top of clear floors with water sloshing all over. Then, there was the image of what seemed like dozens of percussionists going crazy on the instruments (the wonder of mirrors, folks!)...I would later read that the founder of Big Pig had been inspired by Japanese taiko drummers👍 and that guitars of no sort were used. I read that the song's crash-and-bang sound was quite the hit in the dance clubs and along with the band members in those aprons, I gather that "Breakaway" could be a tongue-in-cheek example of industrial pop. The song peaked at No. 10 in Canada while in the United States, it ranked in at a more modest No. 60. Meanwhile, it hit No. 8 in Australia and even No. 1 in New Zealand.
So, what other singles were being released in Japan in November 1987?
Seiko Matsuda -- Pearl-White Eve
Shonentai -- ABC
The Blue Hearts -- Kiss Shite Hoshii （キスしてほしい）
Hey, count me in! I saw Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure in 1989! I thought of it as a cross between "Back to the future" and "Dr Who". I was three months into my 5th grade year when it came out. It was a pretty popular movie and did pretty well at the box office. I did not pay attention to "Breakaway" or the rest of the sound track to Bill & Ted. However, it being that the screen play for the movie was finished in 1987 and the movie was supposed debut in 1988 (before there was hiccups) it makes since that the opening song was from 1987 even though the movie came out in 1989.
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. The ironic thing is that the powers-that-be behind the movie hadn't even heard of "Doctor Who" when the screenplay was hammered out. And they changed the time vehicle into a telephone booth from a tank or car to prevent comparisons with "Back to the Future"...only to get the comparisons with "Doctor Who" when they opted for the telephone booth.
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