A Different Kind of Animal

And the beat goes on... Near the end of the disco era, dancefloor sensation Meco (real name: Meco Monardo) was still riding high on his funked-up versions of music from Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and a wild concept album based on The Wizard of Oz. Meanwhile John Landis was set to release his first all-out horror film in 1981, An American Werewolf in London, whose soundtrack consisted of some tongue-in-cheek "moon" rock standards along with about five minutes of incidental music by Elmer Bernstein. Faster than you can say "A naked American man stole my balloons," Landis and the execs at Polygram resolved the problem of releasing a soundtrack by bringing in Meco to pad the whole thing out, tweaking the songs with a few werewolf sound effects, tossing in some extra rock tracks, and adding two original "power dance rock" werewolf songs at the end. The result is a solid contender for the weirdest horror soundtrack ever released.

An American Werewolf in London
1. Blue Moon
2. You Gotta Hurt Me
3. Moon Dance
4. The Boys
5. Bad Moon Rising
6. No More Mr. Nice Guy
7. Werewolf (Loose in London)
8. Werewolf Serenade