Good Morning Vietnam: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

All songs feature comedy introductions by Robin Williams. All comedy segments have separate track numbers and do not overlap the music.Good Morning Vietnam was a comedy drama starring Robin Williams as an American Army DJ in Vietnam. Appropriately the soundtrack is filled with oldies -- from Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World' and Martha & the Vandellas' 'Nowhere to Run' to the Rivieras' 'California Sun' and James Brown's 'I Got You (I Feel Good)' -- punctuated by Williams' manic comic routines. Some listeners will find the routines a bit tedious but it's a thoroughly entertaining and well-paced collection of oldies that manages to evoke the mid-'60s quite well. ~ Stephen Thomas ErlewinePhotographer: Stephen

Nineteen eighty-seven's Good Morning, Vietnam was a turning point for Robin Williams, garnering the comic his first Academy Award nomination and leveraging him into the first rank of American film stars. As directed by Barry Levinson, Williams imbues the "true life" story of Armed Forces Radio rebel Adrian Cronauer with his patented machine-gun comic banter, undercut by dollops of now equally familiar tragi-comic bathos. But contrary to the tired hit parade we've come to expect from period soundtracks, the '60s music Williams's character spins here is often a refreshing surprise, drawing from trashy garage-band chic ("Liar Liar" by the Castaways), underexposed British Invasion hits (the Searchers' "Sugar and Spice," "Game of Love" by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders), and relatively obscure American chart hits ("Five O'Clock World" by the Vogues, the Rivieras' "Warm California Sun"), all of it gratuitously punctuated by Williams's manic DJ rantings. The inspired revival of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" also became one of the 1980s' most unlikely hits. --Jerry McCulley