Dirty Dancing (20th Anniversary Legacy Edition) (CD - 2003)

Digitally remastered by Michael Fuller (1999, Fullersound, Miami, Florida).

ULTIMATE DIRTY DANCING contains every song from the DIRTY DANCING movie, sequenced in the order that they appeared in the film.

This is a Hyper CD, which contains regular audio tracks and also provides a link to the artist's website with the help of a web browser.

Composer: John Morris.

Audio Remasterers: Mark Wilder; Joseph M. Palmaccio.

Dirty Dancing was a late-'80s phenomenon that will not die. The movie was a smash and the soundtrack was too, spawning several hit singles as well as causing a lot of overdue interest in some great oldies. Ultimate Dirty Dancing is a remastered, resequenced, and redesigned revisitation of the soundtrack and the music from the film. In fact, the disc presents all the songs that appeared in the movie in the order that they appeared and includes a handful of songs from the film's score. The music is a blend of '60s classics like the always wonderful "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, "Cry to Me" by Solomon Burke, and "Love Is Strange" by Mickey & Sylvia and emotional '80s tunes from Eric Carmen, Tom Johnston, the film's leading man Patrick Swayze, and of course Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, whose "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" was a mega-hit that was everywhere in the late '80s. The songs from the score are from the dance instruction scenes at the beginning of the movie, and while they aren't much to listen to, they do help the flow of the soundtrack. Anyone who loved the film and the soundtrack will love this disc as well. ~ Tim Sendra

Two years after the 10th anniversary of Dirty Dancing, RCA released Dirty Dancing: The Collector's Edition, which combined the two soundtrack albums in one deluxe packaging. There is no new music or remastering -- just straight reissues of the soundtracks themselves. The packaging is a simulated-leather double-pack, containing a booklet that boasts nothing but color-tinted stills from the film. In other words, it's the kind of package that is only of interest to hardcore fans of the film. Anyone else will be satiated with the original soundtrack albums. Or just the first Dirty Dancing soundtrack, which contains all the hits, plus the most prominent oldies from the film (with the notable exception of the Contours' "Do You Love Me"). ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

This album includes songs from the hit movie -- both old favorites (Bruce Channel's "Hey Baby"; "In the Still of the Night," from The Five Satins; and Mickey & Sylvia's "Love Is Strange") and recent ones (Eric Carmen's "Hungry Eyes" and "(I've Had) The Time of My Life," performed by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes). "She's Like the Wind" is performed by Patrick Swayze, who played the male lead in the movie. While this may not be "the time of your life," as the album cover advertises, it is a fun collection. ~ Tavia Hobart

The Patrick Swayze film DIRTY DANCING and its accompanying soundtrack have become a pop-culture phenomenon over time. Not only was there as second album of DIRTY DANCING songs, but years after the movie's initial release, we have a compendium of songs from both albums, with the track list arranged to follow the same order as the movie. Regardless of what you may feel about Swayze's own addition to the pop pantheon, "She's Like the Wind," ULTIMATE DIRTY DANCING is full of 1960s R&B classics. Bruce Chanel's wistful, harmonica-laced "Hey Baby;" Otis Redding's pleading ballad "These Arms of Mine;" and Solomon Burke's transcendent, consoling "Cry to Me" rub shoulders with early-'60s hits by Frankie Valli and the Ronettes. The collection appropriately closes with DIRTY DANCING's ostensible theme song (and a favorite of lounge singers everywhere), the Bill Medley/Jennifer Warnes romantic duet "(I've Had) The Time of My Life." minimize