Gert Wilden was a nobody until the cocktail nation stumbled over his labors and fell madly in love. Here was an obscure, classicly trained, Czech musician and arranger, who scored softcore porn and low-budget thrillers in Germany in the late 60s. You can already hear the music in your head I'll bet. With Xers the world over getting into exotica, lounge, and anything remotely retro sounding in the mid 90s, the kitsch kings at Crippled Dick Hot Wax Records released two compilations of Gert Wilden and his Orchestra. The first was a tribute to his porn music and named after a famous German softcore series, The Schulmädchen Report. The songs were sensual to be sure, but the music was pretty straight-up, sixties, now sound. Naturally, the release was a huge success. Enough so that Crippled Dick released a second set of songs, these written for movie and TV crime dramas and thrillers. I Told You Not To Cry is in my opinion a far superior album. Less exotic, but also less derivative. Where the first brought to mind the likes of Paul Thomas, Lex Baxter and Klaus Harmony, this one instead reminds me more of Henry Mancini mixed with John Barry. It's both more playful and more vibrant, so of course more fitting the crime time themes.
No matter, you're not going to go wrong with Wilden if you're in the mood for some swingin', go-go music.
Gert Wilden & Orchestra -- Schulmädchen Report (Title Theme, Die Dressierte Frau)
