Howard Ashman Discography
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Albums
 Little Shop of Horrors [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] Release Date 1986 Label Geffen Rating:  In 1978 Alan Menken and Howard Ashman created a new musical take on Roger Corman's 1960 film Little Shop Of Horrors, which became a Broadway hit. Both involve a man-eating, Venus flytrap-inspired plant named Audrey II, raised in a skid-row flower shop into a massive beast with excessive chloroplast (testosterone?) levels. Though the film was inventive and campy, Menken and Ashman's music music - a mix of doo-wop and lavish songs along the lines of Rocky Horror Picture Show -- made the show's fun hilarious, its thrills outrageously gruesome. The soundtrack to Frank Oz's 1987 film adaptation carries on the musical's spirit: Steve Martin's rendition of &"Dentist," about a demented psychopath who drills mouths (not just teeth) without novocaine, is achingly funny. &"Downtown" is a full-powered choir of the slums; Rick Moranis works for an uptight flower shop manager ("He took me in, gave me shelter, a bed, crust of bread and a job, treats me like dirt and calls me a slob, which I am.") Martin and Moranis' sincere if limited singing is charming, and Ellen Greene returns as the original Audrey from the Broadway version; the way she belts out earth-shakingly high notes is bewildering, particularly on the lovely duet with Moranis, &"Suddenly Seymour." The Four Tops' Levi Stubbs is a scene-stealer as Audrey II, particularly on the new track, the raunchy, boisterous finale &"Mean Green Mother From Outer Space"; since film nominations must be new songs, it was added in hopes of an Academy Award (and did indeed receive a nomination.) When Disney added a tribute to Howard Ashman on the Beauty and the Beast credits after his death in 1992, it read: "To Ashman who gave a Mermaid her voice and a Beast his soul." He also gave a plant its appetite. Peter Fawthrop, Rovi |
Tracks:
| Title | Composer | Time | |
| 1 | Prologue (Little Shop of Horrors) | Ashman, Menken | 3:27 |
| 2 | Skid Row (Downtown) | Ashman, Menken | 4:17 |
| 3 | Da-Doo | Ashman, Menken | 1:24 |
| 4 | Grow For Me | Ashman, Menken | 2:24 |
| 5 | Somewhere That's Green | Ashman, Menken | 3:50 |
| 6 | Some Fun Now | Ashman, Menken | 2:17 |
| 7 | Dentist! | Ashman, Menken | 2:27 |
| 8 | Feed Me (Git It) | Ashman, Menken | 3:25 |
| 9 | Suddenly, Seymour | Ashman, Menken | 3:27 |
| 10 | Suppertime | Ashman, Menken | 2:04 |
| 11 | The Meek Shall Inherit | Ashman, Menken | 3:21 |
| 12 | Mean Green Mother From Outerspace | Ashman, Menken | 4:48 |
| 13 | Finale (Don't Feed The Plants) | Ashman, Menken | 1:30 |
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