‘Godzilla,’ ‘Armageddon’ to Slug It Out

“Godzilla” and “Armageddon” won’t be fighting it out only at the multiplex this summer.

The high-profile movies, consensus favorites to top the box-office charts in the coming months, will also engage each other on a secondary front: record stores.

Soundtrack albums filled with songs by such best-selling artists as Aerosmith, the Wallflowers and Puff Daddy are expected to jockey for position on the pop charts throughout the summer--and maybe beyond.

Sony Music Entertainment, which is releasing both records, is hoping to create the same kind of synergy between the soundtracks and the films that it did in recent months with “Titanic.”

“The ‘Titanic’ success has raised expectations,” says Glen Brunman, executive vice president of Sony Music Soundtrax. “When something works that well, the appetite on the part of movie studios and record companies to duplicate that success increases tremendously.”

Indeed, this could be the biggest year yet for the burgeoning soundtrack business, which has grown sixfold over the last decade.

Cinema-connected packages took up 16 spots on last week’s list of the nation’s Top 200 best-selling albums, headed by “City of Angels,” which moved ahead of “Titanic” to No. 3.

“It’s getting more competitive all the time,” Liz Heller, executive vice president of Capitol Records, says of the soundtrack wars. “Labels have recognized it for the opportunities it presents and are more focused on it.”

In fact, “Godzilla” and “Armageddon” won’t battle only each other for soundtrack supremacy as the weather turns warm. Nearly all of the movies set for release between now and Labor Day will have soundtrack albums attached, including more than a few potential blockbusters.

A small sampling:

* “Hope Floats,” released Tuesday by Capitol, boasts an all-star lineup, including new recordings by Garth Brooks, the Rolling Stones, Trisha Yearwood and Bob Seger with Martina McBride.

* “Can’t Hardly Wait,” due Tuesday from Elektra Records, includes a single by Smash Mouth and could benefit from the prominence of rock and rap in the movie, which is set at a graduation party and features some 50 music sound bites.

* “Mulan,” due June 2 from Walt Disney Records, is the latest from a label that has strung together a long list of multi-platinum soundtrack albums from animated movies, topped by the 1994 smash “The Lion King.”

* “Hav Plenty,” due June 9 from Yab Yum/550 Music/Sony Music Soundtrax, might be the most interesting urban music collection, with singles coming from Babyface & Des’ree, Blackstreet and Absoulute, plus tracks by Faith Evans, SWV and Erykah Badu.

* “Dance With Me,” due July 21 from Epic/Sony Music Soundtrax, showcases Gloria Estefan, Vanessa L. Williams & Chayanne, Ana Gabriel, Jon Secada and Albita performing songs from a music-driven movie that has been described as a Latin “Dirty Dancing.”

* “The X-Files,” due June 2 from Elektra, is probably the most eagerly awaited soundtrack other than “Godzilla,” according to retailers. It features singles and videos by the Foo Fighters, Filter and Bjork, tracks by Sting, Sarah McLachlan and X, plus the Dust Brothers’ reworking of “The X-Files Theme.”

“Our expectations are enormous,” Steve Kleinberg, senior vice president of marketing at Elektra, says of the label’s high hopes for “The X-Files” soundtrack. “The movie is the freight train here, and we expect it to drive us right along with it.”

The same is true of “Godzilla” and “Armageddon,” though the ultimate goal is for the soundtrack to pull its weight too.

“Movie studios are always looking for a hit single six weeks in front of the movie that will drive people into the theater for the first weekend,” says Sony’s Brunman. “But that rarely happens.

“More often than not, when you really succeed with a big hit, it helps the movie on the back end--both in terms of reminding people who haven’t seen the movie yet to go see it and getting folks who liked it to go see it again.”

The “Godzilla” soundtrack, released Tuesday by Epic/Sony Music Soundtrax, is certainly primed to assist in promoting the movie. It is loaded with big-name artists, with singles and videos already out or on the way from the Wallflowers, Puff Daddy (with Led Zeppelin alumnus Jimmy Page), Jamiroquai and Rage Against the Machine.

Expectations are as big as the movie’s title character.

“Excuse the pun,” says Gary Arnold, vice president of marketing for the Best Buy retail chain, who expects “Godzilla” to lay waste to the competition this summer, “but this is going to be a monster record.”

“Armageddon,” due June 30 from Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax, is built around what the label believes is a monster track: Aero-smith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” which is the dominant song in the movie and is heard in some form, whether it be instrumental or with vocals, at several points in the film.

(In most cases, the label that brings the highest-profile artist to the record will land the soundtrack. Thus, Sony acquired the soundtrack to “Armageddon,” which is being released by Disney-owned Touchstone Pictures, by delivering Aerosmith, which also performs another new song and two older songs on the soundtrack.)

Sony hopes that the Aerosmith song will become linked so powerfully with the movie that it will drive sales of the soundtrack in the way that Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” drove “The Bodyguard” in 1992 or Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” drove “Titanic.”

Gauging a soundtrack’s potential, however, is tricky.

“They’re really the hardest records to predict because it’s not only about the quality of the music or the success of the movie,” says Bob Bell, a buyer for the Wherehouse retail chain. “There’s also that element of, how prominent is the music in the movie, and what type of movie is it?

“Historically, the big summer action blockbusters haven’t been the movies with the strongest soundtracks, just because music isn’t usually that big a factor in those movies. But I think last year ‘Men in Black’ disproved that. The music was strong enough on that record to drive sales.”

Brunman, who has been involved in putting together some 100 soundtracks for Sony, says the albums must stand on their own to be successful.

“You’ve got to make a record that connects with the spirit of the movie and acts as kind of an extension of it,” he says. “If you do that, you’ve made a record that people will want to buy.”