Up there we gotta talk about Top Gun. That’s our job.

            Some people don’t like Kenny Loggins. Maybe they’re mad about how he ditched Jim Messina and left smooth music (the best Loggins and Messina song was “Your Momma Don’t Dance” anyway, which is explicitly about the superiority of people who rock). Maybe they hate the 80’s and everyone associated with it (which is ridiculous). Maybe they’re beard racist (is that even racism?). Whoever these Loggins haters may be, or whatever their reasons, I do not count myself among them.

  

            When he wasn’t teaming up with Michael McDonald to write smooth music and thwart the evil Hall and Oates (who sold their blue eyed souls to become New Wave), Kenny Loggins was making the rockingest movie themes of all time. Yacht Rock is good and all, but I believe this to be his one greatest destiny (best possible universe again). The only 80’s movie music makers who were even in the same league as Loggins were Harold Faltermeyer and Giorgio Moroder. What’s that? They both worked on Top Gun too. Oh geez!

Faltermeyer is known for his work on such classic films as Beverly Hills Cop, Fletch, and The Running Man. Wikipedia calls him "one of the composers/producers who best captured the zeitgeist of 1980s synthpop in film scores". I really can't put it any better than that. For Top Gun, he wrote and performed on “Top Gun Anthem” with Steve Stevens, which won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. Double Steve was Billy Idol’s guitarist, FYI, and he really puts on a show in that music video. Harold also wrote “Mighty Wings” which was performed by Cheap Trick. These songs book end the movie and their importance shouldn’t be underestimated.

  

            Giorgio Moroder was the genius behind much of the music in Flashdance, Scarface, and The NeverEnding Story. Boldly lifting material from Wikipedia again, he's "credited with pioneering synth disco and electronic music". Personally, I’ll always remember him as the guy who composed “Danger Zone”. He did have some help from one Tom Whitlock on this masterwork, and they also teamed up to write “Take My Breath Away” for Berlin. Moroder worked on a few other songs in Top Gun, but these were the two biggest songs of the movie. They charted at #2 and #1 respectively. That’s not nothin’. Moroder's called "Take My Breath Away" the work he's most proud of, so Top Gun was the peak of his career. The song also happened to win him and the film an Academy Award. He may have gotten a little carried away with the music in the board of inquiry scene, but I forgive him.

  

            Also on the soundtrack are Miami Sound Machine, and Loverboy, which is enough talent to get me excited right there. But we were talking about Kenny Loggins. Fun fact: Mr. Loggins was actually the fourth act to be approached to perform ”Danger Zone”. First asked was the band Toto, which I probably could have lived with. Next was Bryan Adams, who thankfully refused since the film glorified war (It sounds like somebody needed to realize that Reagan was in office and the 70’s were over). Third up was REO Speedwagon, and that might have been okay. Thankfully, they finally got to Kenny, and he didn’t have any legal problems, or ethical objections, plus he already had another song in the movie. I don’t think I need to point out what this indicates (B.o.a.P.U.).

 

            It’s hard to put into words how much I love “Danger Zone”. Something about the fusion of synths with electric guitar. And that saxophone mixed in at the end just puts it over the top. A saxophone is by far the hardest rocking instrument that you blow into. Then the lyrics are just so bad ass. Revvin’ up you engine / Listen to her howl and roar / Metal under tension / Beggin’ you to touch and go! I should admit that for quite some time I though the chorus was “I went to the Danger Zone”, and not “Highway to the Danger Zone”. Either way, that’s some motivating stuff right there. It’s perfect montage material, and puts the song at a solid number three on my list of all-time greatest montage music. For informational purposes, #1 is “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor, since that song defines montage music, and #2 is "Space Jam", because it’s time to slam jam. Put simply, “Danger Zone” is a song about being stupendous, and it makes me feel stupendous when I listen to it. I like “Danger Zone” so much that sometimes I think it’s the primary reason I like Top Gun. It is a little suspicious that I like Kenny’s big soundtrack hits in the same order that I like the movies that they were attached to. The lists go:

1^st: “Danger Zone”

2^nd: “Footloose”

3^rd: “I’m Alright”

Distant 4^th: “Meet Me Half Way”

And then:

1^st: Top Gun

2^nd: Footloose

3^rd: Caddy Shack

Distant 4^th: Over the Top

Coincidence? Maybe, but consider that I also like the second Kenny Loggins songs from those movies in the same order!? That order being:

1^st: “Playing with the Boys”

2^nd: “I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)”

3^rd: “Mr. Night”

Non-existent 4^th: ???

Who knows, maybe if Over the Top had a second Loggins song I would like that movie more than I do (or maybe it was that annoying kid or all the Cannon Films craziness). Before I go on a Frank Stallone tangent I’ll get back to talking about the K Log, and the logical next topic is of course, “Playing with the Boys”.

  

            Anyone with the intellectual maturity to get beyond the juvenile reaction of “ha ha, gay” can see that this song has some points worth discussing. I’ve already covered the music video in one of my top ten lists, so I won’t discuss it here. Also, it doesn’t contain any Top Gun footage, and therefore isn’t admissible as evidence in this essay. The song itself is actually kind of difficult to unpack. The music is an airy synth track with impactful beats and cheerful guitar riffs. It certainly sounds upbeat, and Kenny’s triumphant delivery with the, what I’m going to describe as “cutesy”, backup singing only reinforces this. Then it has lyrics like: When dreaming takes you nowhere / It’s time to play; It’s man against man / And all that ever matters / Is baby who’s ahead in the game; I said it’s just a boy’s game / But girls play too; In this kind of game, people get hurt / I’m thinking that the people is me (which is my favorite line, since I’m a sucker for describing an individual as people); and One of life's simple joys / Is playing with the boys. My reading of the song is the story of a man who’s in a relationship that's getting to serious for his liking, so he’s compensating by spending more time with his friends. That’s not certain though. Maybe it’s just about volleyball? It was featured in the movie Side Out after all. Or it could also be about a homosexual romance. I can’t be sure, but I do know that this song was responsible for establishing one of the most memorable scenes in Top Gun. I’m of course talking about the volleyball game.

  

            This simple game of volleyball may just be one of the most defining movie scenes of the 1980’s. Some possible competition is when ED 209 blows away a junior executive in Robocop, the water bucket dance in Flashdance, the ”That’s not a knife” scene in Crocodile Dundee, the warehouse angry-dance in Footloose, or Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. My money’s still on volleyball. It has everything: a rocking soundtrack (which I already discussed), excess (because of the way it is), unapologetic homoeroticism (obviously), and it’s a group of adult men playing a game of beach volleyball unironically (they took the time to tape up their wrists). It’s just a lady with big hair and some cocaine away from being the Platonic Form of the entire decade.

The scene isn’t only included to set the tone though, because it also helps develop all the major relationships in the movie. We learn that Maverick and Iceman have some comradery in their rivalry, because you don’t play volleyball with people you hate. Tension is introduced to the Mav-Goose partnership when Mav leaves to spend time with Charlie even after Goose begs him to stay. Then the relationship with Charlie is kept unsure, since not only does Maverick shows up late (I really like those inserts of Maverick checking the time, but who wears a watch while they're playing volleyball?), he also leaves early (because he needs to take a shower). That’s a lot hinging on this scene. I’m pretty sure the movie would fall apart without the volleyball.

  

            I said unapologetic homoeroticism earlier, and this would be a woefully incomplete exploration of Top Gun if it was to just breeze past that. A good place to start would be to look at all the scenes with sweaty dudes in them:

  

 

            I understand that it can be hot in Southern California or the Indian Ocean, but damn. Here are also some quotes I want to take completely out of context: “I want some butts”, “Hard deck my ass”, and “One of life’s simple joys is playing with the boys” (I’m not even going to touch the hard-on lines). Read those how you please. Slightly more substantial than out of context quotes is how the driver/RIO pairs behave more like couples than most actual couples. Look at them:

            They even dress to match:

            This is great stuff. I don’t know when homoeroticism became a word full of fear that movies are trying to change your sexual orientation, but I don’t see it that way. Where's the problem showing men in extra close relationships or excessive displays of manliness? It's one of the cultural distinctions that made the 1980’s so special. But like all things 80’s, I would be happy if it was still common today. Homoeroticism is like the other side of the coin that contained all those gratuitous topless scenes that were omnipresent in the decade (just not in Top Gun). Gratuitous nudity is another term that’s used to put down movies. I will admit that there are varying levels of gratuitous, but putting a topless person in your movie for no good reason isn’t a crime. It’s only appreciation of the human body, and I support it. One day I hope that homoerotism and gratuitous nudity will be used as terms of endearment, and not terms of shame.

  

It's okay for anyone to like this

            Also, those fighter planes were shot in a pretty arousing manner:

            That may have been a bit off topic, but I feel it needed to be said. But what about the big heterosexual relationship in the movie? Honestly, the Maverick-Charlie romance is my least favorite part of the movie. Except for the one in the airport bar, I don’t enjoy any of the scenes where they’re alone together all that much (I really don’t think I needed to see licking during the sex scene, but that paper airplane was nice). Their scenes just weren’t very relevant to the whole fighter pilot plot. Love interests are often woefully underdeveloped in this kind of movie (I struggle to describe Elisabeth Shue’s character from The Karate Kid as anything beyond “nice”), but I really would have liked something. For example, Maverick could have learned to appreciate Charlie’s knowledge of fighter planes and she could teach him something that would pay off later. They already set up a discussion of the MiG 28 and its flight limitations. I guess I can infer that she likes animals since she owns a dog and a parrot. She also had a PhD in Astrophysics, so shes smart, even if Aeronautical Engineering would have made more sense to me (I am a little biased towards engineers though). Romances just aren’t typically my favorite sub-plots, so I shouldn’t be too hard on this one. It wasn’t bad. I just feel it could have had more plot impact

            The Goose-Carole relationship is a whole other story. Like so much else, it'll have to wait until the Goose central essay finale.