Harold Faltermeyer – Axel F.
Perhaps for those who aren’t real 80’s Dinosaurs, the name Axel F. won’t say much. And Harold Faltermeyer’s name probably won’t say much either. But I’m sure that for real Dinosaurs these names bring to mind a lot of memories, related to music and movies.
Yes, because Axel F. is the name of the character played by Eddie Murphy in the movie Beverly Hills Cop, where the cop was named Axel Foley. That movie was truly the springboard for Eddie Murphy’s amazing career, whose unmistakable laugh became a real 80s trademark. That film also had a very respectable soundtrack, with several songs that would later have great success as singles.
Harold Faltermeyer is a German musician who at the age of eleven was recognized with the so-called “absolute pitch”, the ability to recognize and reproduce the pitch of a sound or a note. Naturally this talent led him to deepen his musical studies in a more classical way, but during his teenage years the passion for modern electronic sounds grew in him. His career took a turn in 1978 when he was chosen by Giorgio Moroder to work on the soundtracks of films such as Midnight Express. Their collaboration lasted more than ten years.
In the music scene of the 80s Harold Faltermeyer is best known for the unforgettable sound of Axel F., but he has collaborated with many other artists, and often for other famous films, such as Top Gun or the Fletch series films with Chevy Chase.
Axel F. was released as a single on December 5, 1984, along with the film (only in Los Angeles the film premiered on December 1). To talk about this song, Faltermeyer did not use the actual title (which was probably decided at the end, when the entire soundtrack was composed), but often used the phrase “the banana theme”. In fact, in one of the most hilarious scenes of the film, the policemen are following Axel and park their car in front of the hotel where he entered. Axel, however, had noticed that he was being followed, and orders a snack in the car for the police to distract them. As the waiter delivers their dinner, Axel shovels two bananas into the tailpipes of their car. Immediately afterwards he clearly shows himself to them and greets them, and leaves by car. The cops perform a U-turn to chase him, but of course their car stops immediately, engulfed by bananas in the tailpipe – an unforgettable scene.
The video of Axel F. shows Faltermeyer as a secret detective looking for documents in a rather dimly lit archive. Like all detectives, Faltermeyer wears sunglasses and a raincoat. Then there are some scenes in which a dancer detective appears outside the window filtered by a venetian blind. This setting could have inspired, a year later, one of the most famous scenes of all the 80s, Kim Basinger’s strip in 9 1/2 Weeks, just behind a venetian blind. In the final scenes of the video we then see Faltermeyer playing the song, surrounded by keyboards and synthesizers.
The video is shot largely in black and white and absolutely evokes the atmosphere of another great song that was part of the same soundtrack: The Heat is On by Glenn Frey. I would say that the two videos share an obvious common setup. In the same soundtrack there were as we said other great songs, like Gratitude by Danny Elfman, for example.
Axel F. has no lyrics, it’s an instrumental song. I would say it is the most famous instrumental song of the 80s, probably the only instrumental song to top the charts in several countries. Probably, faced with this unforgettable film, perhaps even Harold Faltermeyer was left … speechless!
Harold Faltermeyer on Wikipedia
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