Michael Kamen seems to want to be the heavy metal conductor.
\nFirst, he gets together with Metallica for the hair-brained idea
\nthat became
\nS & M<\/i>; now we have all sorts of bands pairing up with
\nsymphonies. Deep Purple, I could understand; the Scorpions I can’t.
\n(Memo to Kamen: I don’t hold you to blame for Metallica; they
\nhaven’t put out a good album now in a decade.)<\/p>\n
Now, Kamen appears as the composer and conductor for
\nX-Men<\/i>, the long-awaited film based on the comic book series.
\nMixing traditional symphonic structure with the almost industrial
\ncrunch of electric guitar might fit the action in the film, but it
\nsure wreaks havoc on the eardrums of the casual listener.<\/p>\n
First, an admission: Not only have I not seen the movie, but I
\nhave no plans on seeing the movie. (When the kids in the
\nneighborhood were reading these comic books, I was engrossed in
\nUncle Scrooge and Richie Rich.) But I will give Kamen this much
\ncredit: more often than not, the listener can get an idea of what
\nis happening in the movie based on the energy level and the volume
\nof the music being played.<\/p>\n
This particular soundtrack, even at a comparatively short 40
\nminutes, sometimes feels like it’s three times as long. It takes
\nfar too long for the excitement to build on this project — and
\neven there, it’s a concept that’s introduced on “Ambush” and
\nbrought to fruition only on the next track, “Mutant School.” With a
\nfilm such as this, you’d almost expect the soundtrack to be
\nbristling with excitement and energy from the get-go. Instead, the
\nopening portion is rather dreary.<\/p>\n
There are some decent moments on
\nX-Men<\/i>, coming in the form of the rhythmically powerful
\n“Train” and the disc’s closer “Logan And Rogue.” But what is
\nsurprising, and almost unforgivable, is that the pieces which
\nscream out for an intense performance, such as “Museum Fight” and
\n“Final Showdown,” only serve to let down the listener.<\/p>\n
Maybe sticking to a totally traditional orchestra would have
\nbeen disastrous for this soundtrack — but the mixture of
\ntraditional and industrial doesn’t work nearly as well as one would
\nhope. Quite possibly this would have been a better disc overall had
\nthe soundtrack included works from some of the genre’s top acts. If
\nI read correctly, the producers simply ran out of time. This is one
\nproject I would have demanded that the calendar be opened up for,
\nif only to keep something half-baked from hitting the streets.<\/p>\n
There are, of course, the diehard fans of both
\nX-Men<\/i> and Kamen, and both will swear up and down that this
\ndisc is a masterpiece. For the rest of us, this one is an easy one
\nto pass up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5729],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-36793","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-soundtrack","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36793"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36793"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}