Well, when I heard about this project, my interest was immediately piqued. Somebody covered and reinterpretted the entire Footloose soundtrack? Good Lord and Butter, that's an impressive feat right there. The back story is a bit of a heart wrencher, what with the band having been approached by a childhood friend who asked them to cover it in memory of a deceased half-sister, but that's only slightly less shocking than the fact that lead singer/keyboardist Thomas Bartlett had never heard the soundtrack before it was presented to him by said buddy.If one is to judge a cover strictly by its reinterpretation and how it differs from the original (see damn near the entirety of Joe Cocker's catalogue), then Doveman's Footloose soundtrack is a stunning success. He's taken 80s music, predominantly and overwhelmingly pop and pop rock, and turned it into a piano/keyboard mediation that sounds more dirge-like than anything Kenny Loggins every had in mind. Doveman's music palette here is stark, really consisting of just Bartlett's voice and keys for the main part, with occasional, sparse drums and other instrumentation elsewhere. The end package is much more desolate and chilling, yet engaging nonetheless. If Ren and the other kids were dealing with heroin addiction and not a no-dance policy, this would be the soundtrack for them.
My one huge "problem" with this project is the major pain in the ass downloading it presented. I literally had to reload each song at least three times, as they froze in the process each time prior. That being said, if moody keyboard retellings of 80s soundtrack music is your thing, this most certainly will make your day, if not year.
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