TFG1MIKE 365 – 2025 Day 312 – Beverly Hills Cop III Album Review!

Beverly Hills Cop III – Album Review!

Hello all and welcome to a NEW Daily Blog series from me… TFG1Mike! The idea here is for me to write something, anything, once a day for 365 days. From January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025. In my 312th entry, I’ll be talking about the film score to Beverly Hills Cop III!

La La Land Records released this in January of 2025, and I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get to it. However, 2025 has been a rough year for me. That aside, though, I’ve been awaiting this score release for 31 years! In October of 2024 I wrote up my review of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, you can read that right HERE! Then we also celebrated the 40th Anniversary of the Beverly Hills Cop Films with THIS discussion! And if you want even more, you can go back to MWIRE Episode 125!

The POINT is BEVERLY HILLS COP has been a GCRN staple since DAY ONE of the network. So now let’s get into this, shall we?!

Classic Axwell always did put a really good package together!!

Beverly Hills Cop III is an excellent film. I rewatched it just now, so I could write this soundtrack-score review. Released 10 years after the first film, the third one finds Axel Foley in the same jam as always. He has the same charisma, and his character is awesome as always. There’s no Taggert in this film, but Flint is an ok replacement. Wild Bill Rosewood is back, though, and he’s wonderfully wacky as he always has been!

Nile Rodgers was not a composer I had ever really known of. Looking at his filmography of scores… WOW, he worked on some great films! Stuff like Coming To America, Earth Girls Are Easy, Blue Chips, plus Halo 2 and 3 video game soundtracks! And he fought cancer off and won! I know BHC III had its production issues, scheduling issues, and key people like Jerry Bruckheimer didn’t return… However, I still think it’s a great film. It’s not the best one of the four BHC films, but it’s not bad either!!

Somehow, I’m missing my BHC II score. I need to send Axel F out to find it!

Getting into Nile Rodgers’s score here… There are 38 tracks here. The first 15 tracks are the film’s score presentation. Tracks 16-21 are listed as “additional score”, and they include five versions of “Axel Saves The Kids”. Track 16 is an alternate opening of the “Chop Shop Raid.”

I wish this release had more. YES, it left me WANTING MORE!!!! I get that Mr. Rodgers loves his orchestral scores, but FIVE versions of Axel Saves The Kids?? FIVE?? You could have picked the best one, or his favorite alternate version, and had that, and the four other tracks could have been the sung songs from the film… Like Right Thing, Wrong Way by Sananda Maitreya (formerly Terrence Trent D’Arby). Now I do understand that there are times when La-La Land Records can’t get permission on that kinda thing. However, it would have made the release a little bit more exciting for me. Tracks 22 through 33 are The Wonderworld Theme Park music, and I really dig how sectioned off this one disc release is. 

Tracks 27 and 33, Prehistoric Rides #1 and #3 respectively, are my favorites from the WonderWorld section of the release. The score presentation, tracks 1 through 15, is my favorite part of this release.

Track 1: Axel F (version 1): This starts with Nile’s infusion of the Faltermeyer theme; there are more horns in the beginning, but that’s cool. It brings you into this third film very nicely. What I love most about this is the way the music transitions around the one-minute mark and has a fading effect. That is so cool. So the first half of this is Mr. Rodgers putting his spin on the Faltermeyer Axel F theme, and then the rest is the exact theme we know and love. That’s why this is one of my favorite tracks!

Track 5: Axel Saves The Kids (version 3): We just jump right into the scene, and I love the action-packed funk that this track has. It provides the scene, and Axel Foley’s character the action beats and slow down beats he needs in the scene. It just works, and honestly, this could be a theme song for me in the future! Around the one-minute and twenty-second mark, the song slows, then speeds right back up in a way that I am not even sure how to describe. The instruments that are used in this score… Just amazing!

Track 6: Annihilator 2000: This is going to knock your rocks off!! For only being one minute and twenty-nine seconds, this track does annihilate your senses! I love how different this one is compared to all the other music for the film. It has a fashion show vibe, but instead of the latest clothing, it’s for the gun show!

Track 15: Axel Fox§†!: So this is the final track in the score presentation. It’s also the final of my favorites, and tracks I would listen to outside of the album itself. It’s the party track as Uncle Dave returns to WonderWorld, and AXEL FOX is revealed! Flint, Billy, and Axel are all in wheelchairs, Janice is pushing Axel’s wheelchair, and we have that classic Axel look back moment and smile, which you’ll see at the end of the post here! This track combines and creates an amalgam of the Wonderworld music and the Axel F theme, and it’s so wonderfully done. Pun intended!

Final Thoughts: BHC III’s score release from La-La Land Records did leave me wanting more; however, I am very happy with what is here! Any chance I can get my favorite film’s music outside the film I will take it. Although BHC III is not my #1 fave in the franchise, I do still enjoy it! If you are a soundtrack score lover like I am… You can get the physical CD at La-La Land Records right HERE!

We have brought back The GCRN Universal Ratings System in a BRAND NEW BRANDING!!! It’s The GCRN GEEK METER! And my rating for this CD soundtrack release, as well as the digital release is:

Join me next time when I’ll be writing about something! <— I’ve stopped putting tomorrow or the dates here, because I dunno if I’m gonna write the next day or not. I’ve tried to write more this year though, and the year ain’t over yet…