{"id":976356,"date":"2020-04-16T09:48:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T15:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=985055"},"modified":"2020-04-16T09:48:31","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T15:48:31","slug":"flashback-lethal-weapon-2-helps-the-beach-boys-cruise-to-their-last-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/flashback-lethal-weapon-2-helps-the-beach-boys-cruise-to-their-last-hit\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: \u2018Lethal Weapon 2\u2019 Helps the Beach Boys \u2018Cruise\u2019 to Their Last Hit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Midway through Lethal Weapon 2<\/em>, there\u2019s a scene where Detective Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson<\/a>) brings Rika van den Haas (Patsy Kensit) to his beachside trailer for a date, even though she\u2019s the secretary of an evil apartheid-era South African government official that\u2019s determined to kill him along with much of the LAPD. Before long, he\u2019ll be fishing her lifeless body out of the ocean and vowing to avenge her death, but prior to that unpleasantness they enjoy a few beers and listen to the new Beach Boys<\/a> song \u201cStill Cruisin’\u201d on the radio.<\/p>\n

That may seem like an odd selection for the soundtrack of a big-budget action flick targeting a young demographic, but the movie came out during a brief window of time when Hollywood studios turned to veteran artists to sell albums and promote their films. It began in 1983, when The Big Chill<\/em> brought nostalgic boomers to multiplexes and record shops to relive their youth with oldies like \u201cA Whiter Shade of Pale,\u201d \u201cMy Girl,\u201d<\/a> and \u201cJoy to the World.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it hit a whole new level in 1987, when the Dirty Dancing<\/em> soundtrack spent an incredible 18 weeks at Number One and revived the careers of Ronnie Spector, Righteous Brother Bill Medley, and Raspberries frontman Eric Carmen. Two of the biggest hits \u2014 \u201cHungry Eyes\u201d and (I\u2019ve Had) The Time of My Life\u201d \u2014 were brand-new songs, even though they were recorded by acts that hadn\u2019t seen the top of the charts in well over a decade.<\/p>\n

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The producers of the 1988 Tom Cruise movie Cocktail<\/em> were clearly taking note, since they recruited the Beach Boys to contribute a theme song for the movie. The band hadn\u2019t had a Top 10 single since their cover of Chuck Berry\u2019s \u201cRock and Roll Music\u201d in 1976, but the film was a huge success, and it helped bring \u201cKokomo\u201d to Number One. The video doubled as a free commercial for Cocktail,<\/em> and it went into heavy rotation on VH1. It was a huge win for everyone involved.<\/p>\n

The Lethal Weapon 2<\/em> team wanted some of that Cocktail<\/em> magic the next summer, and \u201cStill Cruisin’\u201d seemed like a nice selection. Written by Mike Love<\/a> and Byrds producer Terry Melcher (who also had a credit on \u201cKokomo\u201d), the song is about the longevity of the Beach Boys, but it also somewhat applies to Lethal Weapon<\/em> \u2014 since the two police officers are \u201cStill Cruisin’\u201d even though Danny Glover\u2019s character claimed to be weeks away from retirement in the first movie.<\/p>\n

Lethal Weapon 2<\/em> was an enormous hit (and truly the best movie of the franchise), but it didn\u2019t help \u201cStill Cruisin’\u201d hit any higher than Number 93 on the Hot 100. That\u2019s a huge comedown from \u201cKokomo,\u201d though it\u2019s the Beach Boys\u2019 last single to land anywhere on the charts. Check out the original video right here.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill Cruisin’\u201d may not be the greatest song in the Beach Boys catalog, but it\u2019s practically \u201cGod Only Knows\u201d when compared with \u201cProblem Child\u201d<\/a> from the soundtrack of the 1990 movie of the same name. That song may be the nadir of the Beach Boys\u2019 entire recording career, and the instrumental rendition<\/a> of it from the B side is definitely the least-essential piece of music they\u2019ve ever released.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been talk for years of a Lethal Weapon 5<\/em>. It would be ludicrous if Danny Glover\u2019s character is still on the police force even though he\u2019s now in his mid-seventies and was actively plotting his retirement in 1987, but they\u2019ll probably find a way to make it work. And if they want a new Beach Boys song for the soundtrack, Mike Love will probably be happy to oblige. He\u2019s been cruisin\u2019 for another \u201cKokomo\u201d ever since 1988, and he\u2019ll probably never stop.<\/p>\n

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Midway through Lethal Weapon 2, there\u2019s a scene where Detective Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) brings Rika van den Haas (Patsy Kensit) to his beachside trailer for a date, even though she\u2019s the secretary of an evil apartheid-era South African government official that\u2019s determined to kill him along with much of the LAPD. Before long, he\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-976356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 15:10:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=976356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=976356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=976356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=976356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}