The Rose (The Original Soundtrack Recording)

iTunes Review

Bette Midler’s first feature film star vehicle finds the fiery pop chanteuse tackling a feat of musical alchemy as unlikely as Barbra Streisand’s A Star is Born — successfully transforming her saucy, former gay bath house persona the Divine Ms M into a doomed, Janis Joplin-inspired blues-rock singer. The 1980 project netted Midler a hit album, a top three title single, and an Oscar nod as Best Actress, catapulting her into the top rank of American double-threat film/music stars in the bargain. While the presence of producer Paul Rothschild (who helmed Joplin’s final album, The Pearl) ostensibly cements the connection between Midler and her tragic inspiration, the tracks themselves often veer in wildly disparate directions, from the Motor City-inspired hard rock of the opening “Whose Side Are You On” to a suitably lugubrious, modest hit cover of Percy Sledge’s evergreen “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and the bittersweet, Amanda McBroom-penned hit title ballad whose enduring success is rivaled only by her Beaches centerpiece, “Wind Beneath My Wings.”