Was Top Gun a Film About Music?
This week, the iconic Tom Cruise classic Top Gun turns 30. It’s the rare case of a movie that was such an omnipotent blockbuster permanently permeating pop culture that its sheer ubiquity might make its presence underrated. So much so, that anyone born in the last three decades might take for granted that they live in a post-Top Gun world, never having known one where Top Gun didn’t exist. The film itself is a perfect storm of the mid-'80s at their most '80s, celebrating big things, fast things, shiny things and still managing to ooze machismo all over my new carpet after playing the VHS videocassette of it today.
Now, there are plenty of other ways to watch Top Gun, but what would you? Top Gun became the then-highest selling video of all time, moving a Val Kilmer-cool level of 3.3 million copies by its second year on the market. A quick glance at the back of the VHS box art offers a clue as to another reason why Top Gun was such a smash and remains a cultural touchstone - the music. In quite the rare credit, beneath the director and studio name on the box itself it boards “ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK AVAILABLE ON COLUMBIA RECORDS AND CASSETTES.” In other words, the music of Top Gun was a big deal. How big? Well, how does going nine times platinum and being number one on the Billboard charts for five weeks sound?
(OCWeekly.com)
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