A drama about a gay lawyer (played in an Oscar-winning performance by Tom Hanks) living with AIDS and battling unfair dismissal from his law firm, Philadelphia (1993) was the first major Hollywood film to address the social controversies surrounding the disease. The soundtrack album offers an eclectic selection of songs, book-ended by a pair of specially written tracks by two giants of American rock: Bruce Springsteen opens with the heartfelt "Streets Of Philadelphia", while Neil Young's contributes the haunting "Philadelphia". (Springsteen has since provided music for Dead Man Walking and The Wedding Singer, while Young scored the western Dead Man). Peter Gabriel, who himself wrote powerful scores for Birdy and The Last Temptation of Christ (the album is Passion), offers "Lovetown", while ever the smooth operator, Sade asks "Please Send Me Someone To Love". Elsewhere the great diva Maria Callas performs the aria "La Mamma Morta" by Giordano. The album concludes with "Precedent" from Howard Shore, who also composed the music for director Jonathan Demme's previous film, The Silence of the Lambs. His Philadelphia score is available on a companion release, which also includes more of the opera selections that feature significantly in the movie. Hank's follow-up would be the even more successful Forrest Gump. --Gary S. Dalkin