Freddy's Dead Soundtrack

Last time on Soundtrack To My Youth, young Al had received a Christmas gift of a CD player and 3 CDs. Those CDs had been chosen for him based on movies he had enjoyed. Old Al takes a trip in the Wayback Machine to see if those were wise choices. Now let us return to our tale as he slashes his way through another CD.

I saw A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master in the theater. In retrospect, I’m not sure what my mom was thinking, considering I was 7 at the time. But I was already a huge fan of the series. When A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child rolled around, I was in the theater for that one too. Then I got in trouble in fourth grade for carrying my schoolwork in a Freddy Krueger folder. My teacher didn’t like the idea of glorifying serial killers. But hey, if Freddy is such a bad role model, why would they make Freddy Krueger folders for kids to carry their schoolwork in? Anyways, this was the same teacher who wouldn’t let me write an essay on Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake because wrestlers only know how to solve problems with violence.

Of course, I had to be there opening night for Freddy’s Dead that at the end of the film, Freddy would indeed be dead, ending my beloved series. Of course, we should’ve known better when Iggy Pop snarled “Do you really think Freddy’s dead?” in the theme song. Fuck you, Iggy. Warn us when there’s a spoiler alert ahead.

If I had to guess the film’s plot based solely on the soundtrack, I’d think Freddy dies from listening to the Goo Goo Dolls. Seriously, they have three songs on here. Probably because the album was released on Metal Blade. Speaking of which, how the hell did the Goos get signed to Metal Blade? Granted, they hadn’t turned into a godawful adult contemporary band yet, but a second-rate Replacements rip-off still seems out of place.

That said, the Goo Goo Dolls tracks (two of which were taken from Hold Me Up, which I’ll revisit in a future blog) are pretty good. They sound like something Paul Westerberg would’ve written if he needed a few more songs for his album and was running out of studio time and pretty much just didn’t give a shit.

Maybe their songs just seem better because the rest of the record, other than Chubb Rock’s excellent single “Treat ‘Em Right,” is bland at best, cringe-worthy at worst. The 90s were not a good time for Iggy Pop’s creative juices (they must have drained out with all the blood he had lost by then). Maybe the Fates Warning song is good. I don’t know. I hate progressive metal. Freddy may not be dead, but I wish prog-metal was.