Sister Act: Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (修女也疯狂 电影原声带)

I have to believe the chief reason for picking up this album is to get the songs that the nuns sing in "Sister Act." The appeal here is what I think of as the Joe Piscopo approach to singing songs when he played Frank Sinatra on "Saturday Night Love." Piscopo would either take a regular Frank Sinatra hit (e.g., "Witchcraft") and turn it into a heavy metal/rock song, or he would take a popular rock song (e.g., Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run") and do it in Sinatra's classic saloon style. That is essentially what we have here when the nuns led by Sister Delores take a "traditional" church song such as "Hail Holy Queen" and do it R&B style or when they take a song like "I Will Follow Him" and turn the opening into a hymn of devotion. In case you do not read the notes, Andrea Robinson is the soloist who does the power solos in grand Marni Nixon style for Sister Mary Robert (Wendy Makkena). The bad news is that they cannot fill up a complete album of such songs, even if you throw the songs from "Sister Act 2" into the mix as well, so there are two additional components to this soundtrack. First there are original classic R&B songs from the likes of Etta James ("Roll With Me Henry"), Fontella Bass ("Rescue Me"), and Dee Dee Sharp ("Gravy"). Then there are a couple of instrumental tracks written by Marc Shaiman which are really around just to fill up the album. The best of that bunch is "Getting into the Habit," but even that one is not going to stand up against even the weakest of the singing tracks (which would be "My God," which is cute lyrically but not as much fun as the other "covers" in terms of the harmonious singing raising the rafters). The goal here is to be able to listen to the songs without having to watch the movie, so that you can sing along with the ladies in the car or while doing work around the house. These are infectious versions of these songs and the idea of investing secular pop songs with religious fervor is rather appealing. Besides, not only do you have Whoopi Goldberg and Kathy Najimy singing, but also the late great Mary Wickes. For the record, the other ladies of the choir are Ellen Albertini Dow, Carmen Zapata, Pat Crawford Brown, Prudence Wright Holmes, Georgia Creighton, Susan Johnson, Ruth Kobart, Susan Browning, Darlene Koldenhoven, Sheri Izzard, Edith Diaz and Beth Fowler (yes, the one you see signing in the movie are the ones actually doing the singing on the soundtrack, which I also think is pretty neat).