Top 10 Favorite Soundtrack Songs: No. 8 “Off to See the World”

8. We’re Off to See the World – from The Chipmunk Adventure

As you may start to see, my tastes in music have their patterns. For subject matter, I enjoy songs about “love,” about “hope,” about “adventure,” and about “making something of yourself.” Even “Fire Treasure” is a song about love. And for styles of music, I either like things that are jazzy and mellow, classical and adventurous, or pop and upbeat. However, one other area that means very much to me and can change my enjoyment of a song in an instant, is the use of great harmonies.

My mom is a big fan of harmonies, being a fan of ABBA after all. And she’s been rather disappointed in recent years over the lack of great harmonies in pop music. It’s all about the star singer and not about creating ear catching chords like they did back in the day with groups like the Beach Boys or the Beetles or the Bee Gees. Thankfully people like FUN exist to fill in the gaps, as well as an ever growing collection of A-Capella groups out there with their own reality shows and such. I very much stand with my mom on that count. There isn’t a real shortage of music that I like from recent years as far as I’m concerned. However, the soundscape of the majority of songs is rather lacking in harmonies of voices or even harmonies with one’s self in a song; like how Jeff Lynne often harmonized with himself on many of ELO’s most famous songs.

And so that brings us to Alvin and the Chipmunks and their song, “We’re Off to See the World,” taken from their 1986 motion picture. I’ll be getting to reviewing that movie rather soon, as there is much to talk about regarding its quality and its rather awkward artistic design. But speaking on the music of the film, the music is pretty solid. I even learned that “We’re the Girls of Rock’n’Roll” was a song re-purposed from another film entirely, and it was actually made all the better by having done so. So generally speaking the songs are good, well-sung by indistinguishable yet relatively good artists, and most have memorable hooks and catchy phrases.

But I chose “We’re Off to See the World” out of the rest of the soundtrack because this one speaks to me on a meaningful level. It talks about traveling the world, seeing new places and doing cool new things. The bright harmonies of the high-pitched voices really accentuate the feeling of floating on air and rising to the sky. I enjoy the use of a piano to create a driving rhythm and the juxtaposition it has with the high voices. And most of all, I latch onto the great energy this song has for its adventurous subject matter. It’s about finding your dreams and seeing new things: these are concepts that permeate everything that I do and many more songs that you will hear me talk about, even beyond this list.

[As with many non-Disney animated features, a  Soundtrack for this film was released, but is slightly harder to come by. In this case you will have to purchase the physical disk in used condition if you want a copy.  Thankfully the same can’t be said for the movie, since it has recently been re-released on both DVD and a new Blu-ray. So you won’t have to pay the ridiculous prices for any of the older used copies for quite a while.]

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Chipmunk-Adventure-Soundtrack-Randy-Edelman/dp/B000006EIQ/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1403590511&sr=8-5&keywords=the+chipmunk+adventure

>Go to Next Song – (#7)

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