Goblin: Progressive Rock Movie Music

By: Steve Biodrowski
Date: Saturday, June 02, 2001

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember Goblin, the Italian progressive rock group whose work helped define a certain sound and style of film scoring back in the 1970s and 1980s. But age really has little to do with it, since few people from that era remember the group, unless they're die-hard fans of Italian horror. Still, even if you've never heard of them, their music should be of interest if you're a soundtrack collector, a horror movie fan, or an enthusiast of the progressive rock movement of the '70s (best exemplified by Yes and ELP).

The group recently reformed long enough to score the latest giallo effort from Dario Argento, NONHOSONNO (Italian for 'I Can't Sleep'), but a planned live reunion performance at a convention last year failed to materialize. So it seems Goblin will remain a thing of the past, their music known to today's listeners mostly through CD re-issues of their classic albums. The CDs most easily available to American listeners are the anthology collections put out by DRG Movies, which so far have reached four volumes. The first two, however, hit most of the highpoints, in terms of both greatest hits and previously unreleased tracks.

First, a little history: Goblin emerged in the mid-'70s, a rock-and-roll group known less for touring and hit singles than for scoring horror films. Their first soundtrack was for Dario Argento's giallo masterpiece Deep Red (1975, known as Profondo Rosso in its native Italy). They followed up with Argento's over-the-top opus Suspiria, providing a truly pulverizing score apparently designed to beat viewers into submissionan approach perfectly in tune with the visual stylings of the director. For George Romero's gory masterpiece Dawn of the Dead, co-produced with Argento's involvement, they provided music for the Italian release, much of which was incorporated by Romero into the American cut of the film. This music found its way onto an American record album release from Varase/Sarabande, the first chance that most American fans had to buy one of the group's records. Fortunately, this was in the day when many record stores stocked large sections of import records, so avid collectors, their appetites whetted by the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack, could track down Goblin's previous work.


The film Dawn of the Dead was a huge success in America and in Italy, where it launched a series of imitators (Zombie, a.k.a. Zombie 2), which often emulated the soundtrack style of Goblin, often leading to rumors that the band had played, uncredited, on these films. In some cases, this was partly true: the band went through many personnel changes, and some of those former members did occasionally end up playing as session men on other soundtracks. In any case, the point is that Goblin established an approach to soundtrack scoring whose effectiveness is evidenced by the many imitators that followed.

In his review of Suspiria in Cinefantastique magazine, Mick Garris (who later went on to direct his own horror films) called Goblin a kind of 'pasta-fied Tangerine Dream,' but this description, while understandable, is misleading. Like the Dream, Goblin did use synthesizers, vocalizations, and sound effects to create ambient soundscapes, but this was much less prevalent in the Italian group's worka part of their repetoire, but not the major one. Unlike Tangerine Dream, which was usually comprised of a trio of keyboard wizards who only occasionally used electric guitars or traditional instruments, Goblin was a four-piece rock group for most of its career (keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums), and they played loud, fast progressive music utilizing fast runs of notes, blistering guitar work, extremely active bass lines, and elaborate drummingoften backed by the sequenced synthesizers that lent a superficial resemblance to Tangerine Dream.

After Dawn of the Dead, Goblin began their gradual descent; although they continued to turn out good music, it wasn't as good as their glory days. First, they lost their original guitarist, Massimo Morante; later, keyboardist Claudio Simmonetti left as well. Bassist Fabio Pignatelli and drummer Agostino Marangalo continued as a two-piece, with assistance from session musicians (Carlo Pennisi on guitar and Maurizio Guarini on keyboards). Eventually, Marangalo left as well, and Pignatelli continued on his own, with a new set of musicians. At one point, Simmonetti, Morante, and Pignatelli reformed, without the Goblin monicker, to score Argento's masterpiece Tenebrae, but ultimately the 'group' devolved into a one-man operation, consisting of Pignatelli using sequencers and synthesizers to make up for the lack of other musicians. (Ironically, at this point, the Goblin's sound really did start to resemble Tangerine Dream.)

During the group's heydey, much of its work was available on import vinyl, including soundtrack recordings for Profondo Rosso, Suspiria, Dawn of the Dead (called Zombie in Italy, hence the title Zombie 2 for Lucio Fulci's entertaining rip-off), and Contamination, (released as Alien Contamination in the U.S.). The Tenebrae album got an English release, and their work on Argento's 1984 Phenomena showed up on an American record release (retitled Creepers). Along the way, there were also a 'Greatest Hits' collection and two non-soundtrack albums from the '70s, Roller and Il Fantastico Viaggio del 'Bagarozzo' Mark, featuring some of their best work (the latter being a concept album with lyrics and vocals from guitarist Morante).

With the demise of vinyl, these discs became almost impossible to find; in many cases the recordings were already out of print, anyway. Many of them have been re-released on CD with bonus tracks, and you might be able to find them through a diligent search on the Internet, but it might be a far better use of your time to track down the four Goblin Collection discs from DRG Movies. Especially recommended are the first two disc, The Goblin Collection 1975-1989 and The Goblin Collection, Volume II 1975-1980, which are reviewed more fully in separate articles (which can be accessed through the links at the bottom). The latter discs dip more deeply into tracks taken from the group's lesser efforts, and there are fewer unreleased bonus tracks left to unearth.

Combined, these discs give an excellent overview of the group's work You get the all-out rock and roll, the ambient textures, the extravagant virtuoso performances, and the more mechanical sequencer extravaganzas. Most important, unlike many soundtrack albums, you get music that stands on its own, apart from the film. Plus, you get not only the memorable title tracks but also numerous goodies sure to please even long-time fans who already own their records. (The discs are subtitled 'Hits, Rare Tracks, and Outtakes.')

Of the first two discs, Volume I is the superior one, containing more rare tracks and alternate takes, but Volume II also has its share of gems, including a few tracks from Cherry Five, a pre-Goblin album by essentially the same band members, that led to their getting the gig on Deep Red. Unlike their soundtrack work, the Cherry Five tracks include vocals, and the sound is even more obviously reminiscent of Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

Unfortunately, the liner notes on leave something to be desired. The information is often misleading or contradictory, and the track ordering of Volume I is a mess. The supposed chronology is based on the release dates of films in their country of origin. This ignores the fact that Goblin occasionally rescored films for release in Italy years after their initial release. Since the notes include the names of the musicians playing on each album, you might get the impression that the members were jumping in and out of the group at random, when actually it's just a matter of the tracks being listed out of the order in which they were actually recorded.

But this is a small price to pay for a chance to have so much great music (over an hour on each disc) presented on CDs that deliver sound quality even better than the original albums did. Fans or newcomers can enjoy these recordings, which could make some great background music for a Halloween party.