99 Miami Vice.....Shoulder Pads & Salmon Shirts

And so we backtrack to number 99...., I think it was sort of worth the wait as my $1.99 near mint copy of this album found it's way thought the postal system. Amazon sellers CAN be a wonderful thing!
As I mentioned, this album is not available on Spotify or iTunes either streaming or to purchase, so you will just have to play along in your head for this one

It's 1985 and Miami Vice was genuinely HUGE...20+ million viewers tuned into the American NBC broadcasts, in the UK it was the top rated drama on TV (yes...even more than Corrie or Eastenders).

Miami Vice (TV Soundtrack) - Listening on original vinyl.

You genuinely can't overstate the level of cultural impact of this show, in many ways the "style" of the mid 80s was either drawn from, or reflected in this show. South Beach Miami itself was rejuvenated in large part as a result of the increased attention the show brought on the city. Flash cars, fast boats and glitzy cocktail bars were very much hard baked into the DNA of the show.

And of course there was the fashion....if you think of the 80's for men as solid colour t-shirts with a sharp jacket (often with sleeves rolled up to the elbows)....this is where it came from! Truth be told I could never quite pull off the look, but I cannot think of a single one of my friends who did not follow in the style footsteps of Tubs and Crockett. 

Perhaps more than any show up to this time in my life, it also had a massive sense of cinematic style. It quite literally rewrote the rule-book of how a TV show could look... there is a direct line from this show to NYPD Blue, the CSI franchise, NCIS, and many more. Showrunner Michael Mann used this a platform to launch a massively successful film directing career.

Bound into the visual style was the music, musical vignettes became mini music videos, style and atmosphere were underpinned by a quite brilliant selection of contemporary tunes as well as a truly memorable score from Czech instrumentalist Jan Hammer who's tunes from the show permeated popular culture well beyond the show.

So it's no surprise that the show spawned an album (well 3 actually) - the first of these featured here. Fond memories of this record are not reflected in listening today. It's a mix of Jan Hammer's themes and tunes from artists of the day

As there is no Spotify or iTunes link....here is the track listing

1 The original Miami Vice Theme (Jan Hammer)
2 Smuggler's Blues (Glen Frey)
3 Own the Night (Chaka Khan)
4 You Belong to the City (Glen Frey)
5 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
6 Miami Vice (Jan Hammer)
7 Vice (Grandmaster Melle Mel)
8 Better Be Good To Me (Tina Turner)
9 Flashback (Jan Hammer)
10 Chase (Jan Hammer)
11 Evan (Jan Hammer)


What you might notice about this list is that it misses many of Jan Hammer's best moments from the show. The title theme is intact, but many of the moments you are remembering did not make the cut (they are saved for albums 2 and 3). What IS present of course is Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight"... long before we laughed at the gorilla on the drum kit (American friends, google the song name + cadburys gorilla - you won't regret it 😂) Miami Vice implanted a brilliant mental image in our minds of Tubs and Crockett driving through the night, camera strapped to the front of the car.

We get a couple of forgettable Glen Frey songs (hardly up there with the best of the Eagles output)... a decent tune from Chaka Khan and an old favourite from Tina Turner.... and a truly awful track from Grandmaster Melle Mel. It's all just a bit "meh"... nowhere near as good as the show that spawned it and frankly astonishing that this shifted over 4 million copies! Later albums from the series were better, but did not sell as well, perhaps buyers were more than a little put off. That said, this was a brilliant trip down memory lane, better than watching the show which is curiously slow when watching these days.

The sun tans, the cars, the clothes..... I'm not sure it gets more 80s than this.

More later...