The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Original Soundtrack

We Say...

Review by Karen Schoemer

Toward the end of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, after Susan Sarandon's Janet has been deflowered and Barry Bostwick's Brad has discovered his inner Larry Craig, after lesbians have gotten off watching straight sex on their video monitor and the brother-sister duo of Riff Raff and Magenta have incestuously pawed one another, after just about every carnal taboo known to the '70s has been broken, including the concept of Meatloaf as a sex object, Tim Curry's Dr. Frank-N-Furter delivers his manifesto. "Give yourself over to absolute pleasure," he operatically intones during the eight-minute mini-symphony "Rose Tint My World." "Swim the warm waters of the sins of the flesh." Lest the sincerity of the sentiment be overlooked, arena-rock guitars and caroming drum fills give way to trilling harp and goopy strings.

Thirty-three years after its original release, Rocky Horror perseveres, thanks to its disarmingly simple Frankensteinian message: sex — gooooooood. The soundtrack remains indelible, fusing elements of prog rock and British dance hall, earnest musical-theater clichés and rabidly satiric B-movie spoofs; it's a paragon of camp, the godfather to countless Hedwigs and Priscillas. Sarandon pants with abandon in "Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me"; Curry smirks and struts through "Sweet Transvestite," out-glamming '70s icons like Marc Bolan and David Bowie. It all builds up to "Time Warp," a PG party anthem so deliriously inane, it remains in heavy cultural circulation today. Of course, we all know what crazed dancing leads to.