Night Fever Music is a little late to the Fright Night 30th anniversary party, considering the film was released in August of 1985. But since they’re offering fans the opportunity to buy the film’s classic soundtrack on vinyl, they get a pass.
Chock full of radio-friendly artists from the ’80s, the album—which features tunes recorded especially for the soundtrack from R&B singer Evelyn “Champagne” King, cock rockers Autograph and April Wine, new wavers Devo, and art rock luminaries Sparks—has long been out of print, and has become a collector’s item over the years. “There was an effort to create a pop soundtrack that would be appealing to radio and as well as to a younger audience,” soundtrack executive producer David Chackler said in an interview with Daily Grindhouse last August. “[Producer] Gary Goetzman and I discussed the concept of putting together a soundtrack that we wanted to reach as broad an audience as we could.”
The Fright Night soundtrack is notable for its use of all original music. “Soundtracks now are based more in licensing,” stated Chackler. “It’s a lot more work to have original songs in your movie.” He added, “Tom Holland [writer and director of Fright Night] and I went through the script page by page and then we picked out which cues he wanted music to appear in and from where. A lot of the source cues came from background sources: radios, tape players, wherever he wanted it to come from … Tom is a very musical guy.”
The album also features J. Geils Band’s “Fright Night”—sung by keyboardist Seth Justman, not lead vocalist Peter Wolf—Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople, and the rockabilly-tinged “Boppin’ Tonight” by the Fabulous Fontaines, a studio project put together by Goetzman and producer Mike Piccirillo when Chackler needed one more musical act but didn’t have any more money. The record also features a portion of Brad Fidel’s electronic score.
The newly remastered, deluxe edition of the soundtrack is pressed on 180 gram vinyl and available in three different versions: Blue and white ”evil haze” colored vinyl, a very limited edition (200, to be exact) blue glow-in-the-dark vinyl, and a special picture disc LP featuring the iconic 1985 poster art. All three versions can be purchased at Night Fever Music.
[Full disclosure: The interview with Chackler was conducted by the author of this piece.]