First things first: who would’ve guessed in 1989 that the
funniest role Eddie Murphy would have in the next 15 years would be
as the voice of an animated donkey?
Stacking the anomalies even higher, who in 1993 would’ve tagged
Adam Duritz and Counting Crows as the authors/performers of the
upbeat opening-sequence soundtrack (and hit single) for a
quote-unquote kids’ movie?
You wise guys can sit down now. Nobody, that’s the answer.
There is in fact quite a stir among Counting Crows fans about
the band’s recent commercial success — first they team up with
Vanessa Carlton for “Big Yellow Taxi,” now they cut a song for a
big summer movie… and it’s an upbeat love song for an
animated flick?
Thankfully there are cooler heads in the crowd who see this for
what it is — Duritz and company taking up a musical challenge and
beating the odds. Creeping-towards-forty roots-rock ensembles
aren’t supposed to make hit records, y’see, but CC just did it
twice in a row. Who knows how many more albums of wonderful CC
artistry the success of these two songs will earn us fans?
And the bottom line is, “Accidentally In Love” is a terrific
song, bouncy and appealing, but with just the right undercurrent of
doubt to both illustrate the storyline and give the track itself
some emotional depth.
The rest of the soundtrack — much of which is
surprise! actually used in the movie — is a mixed but
mostly interesting bag. Truth be told, the disc is worth it alone
for the juxtaposition of Lipps, Inc.’s uber-cheesy disco classic
“Funkytown” with the Eels’ brooding, plaintive “I Need Some Sleep.”
(And really, how cute is it that they used one of the handful of
songs about insomnia out there that
wasn’t written and recorded by Counting Crows?)
Other highlights include Butterfly Boucher dueting with David
Bowie on his “Changes” — the Thin White Duke tries out an
alternate delivery that freshens up the old nugget nicely — and
Pete Yorn’s barn-burning jangle-rock take on “Ever Fallen In Love.”
The actors get in on the fun, too. Jennifer Saunders of
Absolutely Fabulous fame, who voices the Fairy Godmother in
the movie, has a blast pouring the megawattage into “Holding Out
For A Hero,” and Murphy — who once cut a respectable r & b
album — partners with Antonio Banderas for a pure-silly-fun
rendition of “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”
Strong contributions from Dashboard Confessional, Tom Waits and
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds round out the notables on this
diverse and frequently entertaining disc. There’s nothing
life-changing here, but it’s reliably frothy, sassy fun — kinda
like the movie
Shrek 2, or Eddie Murphy back in the ’80s.
