Movie Soundtrack Highlights — Stan Bush: The Touch

I could hardly do a series of blog posts about songs from the movies without referring to one of my all time favourite films from my childhood. I’ve posted about this film at reasonable length in the past, but I didn’t really go into much detail about the soundtrack, which remains one of my all time favourites and subsequently one that I listen to quite frequently. Its mixture of rock tracks, instrumental pieces from Vince DiCola and, oddly, Dare To Be Stupid by Weird Al Yankovic (which works brilliantly in the context of the film) is 40-odd minutes of pure joy.

The highlight, arguably, is this track The Touch by Stan Bush. It plays a pivotal role in two key scenes in the film, the first being where Autobot leader Optimus Prime arrives on Earth and fights off all of the Decepticons attacking Autobot City. This is still the only moment in the history of film that gives me goosebumps every time I see it. The second moment is towards the end of the film where, with mild spoilers for anyone yet to see the film, the “turbo revvin’ young punk” Hot Rod takes hold of the Autobot Matrix of Leadership and becomes Rodimus Prime.

On that subject, I have recently listened through to most of Stan Bush’s albums both before and since The Touch was released, and while there isn’t much in his catalogue that stands out as much as The Touch and, to a lesser extent his other track from The Transformers: The Movie called Dare, he is still a respectable if mostly generic power ballad artist.

Sadly it seems that since this big hit Stan has been desperately trying to relive past glories by issuing a glut of remixes and reinterpretations of this one song rather than trying to do something new and equally as awesome, but therein lies the perils of fame. Outside of the Transformers fan base, are there many who can honestly say they know who Stan Bush is? In any case, if this proves to be his main legacy to the world of popular culture, then at least he can say he had his 15 minutes.