Music from Close Enouncters of the Third Kind

An "Out of this World" Soundalike Album

Ask most people what they remember about 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and it’s unlikely that any of them will say “the banging soundtrack.” Sure, most people who have seen the film know those five famous notes that were used to communicate with visiting aliens, but when most people remember about the film are UFOs, Devil’s Tower… and mashed potatoes.

When I was just beginning to discover music in the late 70s/early 80s, knock-off records were really popular. These weren’t knock-offs in the sense that they were bootlegs or unlicensed albums. These were legitimate albums sold in stores and television commercials that featured songs you knew by artists you had never heard of. Imagine walking into Walmart and seeing an album called “The Best of Taylor Swift” and then seeing “(as sung by the Pop Sisters)” in small print.

This was especially common with soundtracks that featured music performed by orchestras. For every official Star Wars soundtrack there were a hundred featuring music performed by random orchestras. The name of the orchestra was always printed much smaller than the words “as orchestrated by JOHN WILLIAMS!”

This is one of those albums.

This Close Encounters album was put out by Pickwick Records, who specialized in what became known as “soundalike” records. For a period of time in the mid-70s Pickwick shifted to acquiring and reissuing albums dropped by other labels, but it’s their soundalike albums that most people remember them for and what interests me the most.

If the idea of “soundalike albums” sounds like a cheap cash grab… you’re right. That’s exactly what they were. Studio musicians were hired, cover tunes were banged out in a day or two, and the songs were released as quickly as possible to capitalize on movies, television shows, or even fads. (Google “pickwick records Christmas disco” sometime.) Many times, the same group of musicians would record a dozen songs in a single session and each song would be attributed to different bands with made up names.

Now, the fun thing about a lot of these albums, especially the soundtrack soundalike ones, is that they often contain original songs that never appeared anywhere else. When I was a kid I had an album that featured the theme from Star Wars and other sci-fi movies of the time, but it also included multiple original songs including one called “Space Race” that I spent years trying to find what film or television show it was from. Turns out, it was some made up song. As far as I know, it appears on one single album:

By the way, for years I thought the version of “Rocket Man” on this album was the original and Elton John’s was simply a pitiful cover. And, that’s kind of the thing about these records and what makes them collectible. To 99% of the population, the version of “Rocket Man” on this album probably sounds a little goofy. (In fact instead of singing “Burning out his fuse up here alone,” the singer seems to mumble “Burning off the shoes of Evernawn…”.) The “Star Wars” theme is a medley of sorts with some groovy interstellar sound effects tossed in. If you’ve never heard them before they’re a novelty listen at best, but if you grew up with one of these records, the nostalgia is real.

This “Close Encounters” album is no different. There are three songs from the film, all soundalike versions, followed by a bunch of songs that were “inspired” by the film. You could also say that Pickwick was “inspired” to collect enough songs to crank out another album, haha.

I’m not a traditional vinyl collector, whatever that means. Every type of media, be it vinyl, cassette, or CD, all had a different sound. I’m not one of those guys who collects vinyl albums because I think they sound superior. I collect stuff from my childhood, and others’ childhoods, stuff that never made it to the digital age. Weird artifacts, like the galactic songs on this album that seem to only exist on albums released a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.