This movie was a Wagnerian epic about a bowler who is
\nunemployed, smokes too much pot and listens to a lot of Creedence
\nClearwater Revival. As such, the soundtrack reflects much of this
\nepic (and satirically so) tone – from the la-la-la of the opening
\nBob Dylan song to the bizarre nature of Meredith Monk’s entry, we
\nget a wide variety of songs conveying many diverse emotions.<\/p>\n
The soundtrack doesn’t hold together entirely well, however. The
\nfirst three or so tracks are great, and go together very well. The
\ntransfer from Elvis Costello’s “My Mood Swings” to “Ataypura” by
\nYma Sumac is a bit rough, but the song works out well despite that.
\nIn fact, that one song conveys the attitude of the movie –
\ngrandiose, despite stupidity.<\/p>\n
“Traffic Boom” has a driving bass line, overlaid with great
\nbombastic trumpets and other brass – it’s a great song, very much
\nlike “Peter Gunn” in feel, but a bit more outgoing. We continue the
\nsort-of retro feel with “I’ve Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good,” a
\nsoftly bluesy, jazzy song by Nina Simone. It’s plodding, but her
\nvoice is outstanding. “Stamping Ground” is very enjoyable – it
\nconsists of two disconnected but related pieces of music, strung
\ntogether with dialogue read in the middle. It’s very simple, with
\nheavy percussion, but keeps the listeners attention quite nicely.
\nThe first half seems like a canvas that keeps getting painted over
\n– more and more layers of sound and music add until the climax. The
\nsecond half proceeds much the same, but with heavier clarinets and
\nsnare drums, thus similar in style but different in melody.<\/p>\n
We move back into the ‘pop’ music section with Kenny Rogers’
\nbiting “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was
\nIn)”. Meredith Monk presents “Walking Song,” which consists
\nentirely of vocal noises, like gasping singing, one from each
\nstereo channel. I like this song a lot – it’s unique, interesting,
\nand very expressive.<\/p>\n
Then an opera segment, as well as a Henry Mancini song, bring us
\nback into the “classical” segment of the disc. The excerpt, from
\n“Die Tote Stadt” is very much a stereotypical opera – which is
\nprecisely what it needed to be to keep the mood. The Mancini piece
\nis a very flowery piece – one that the sunrise sequence of a
\ncartoon might be set to. The latin version of “Hotel California” by
\nthe Gipsy Kings is just great – it’s not just a cover, it’s a
\nreinvention. The German techno song that follows it is mainly for
\natmospheric effect, and I don’t particularly care for it.<\/p>\n
“Dead Flowers” by Townes Van Zandt is an appropriate way to
\nfinish the disc – a bit melancholy, but not really depressing.<\/p>\n
This disc is good – but it seems to be a bit short of a full
\nalbum. The songs don’t flow together terribly well, and it comes
\nacross as a bit of a jarring effect at times. It isn’t as great as
\nthe sum of its parts – which is a shame, because its parts add up
\nnicely. It’s definitely a great counterpoint to the film, as it
\ncaptures the essence of the movie quite nicely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":26083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5729],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37295","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-soundtrack","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37295","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37295"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37295"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}