First things first: who would’ve guessed in 1989 that the
\nfunniest role Eddie Murphy would have in the next 15 years would be
\nas the voice of an animated donkey?<\/p>\n
Stacking the anomalies even higher, who in 1993 would’ve tagged
\nAdam Duritz and Counting Crows as the authors\/performers of the
\nupbeat opening-sequence soundtrack (and hit single) for a
\nquote-unquote kids’ movie?<\/p>\n
You wise guys can sit down now. Nobody, that’s the answer.<\/p>\n
There is in fact quite a stir among Counting Crows fans about
\nthe band’s recent commercial success — first they team up with
\nVanessa Carlton for “Big Yellow Taxi,” now they cut a song for a
\nbig summer movie\u2026 and it’s an upbeat love song for an
\nanimated flick?<\/p>\n
Thankfully there are cooler heads in the crowd who see this for
\nwhat it is — Duritz and company taking up a musical challenge and
\nbeating the odds. Creeping-towards-forty roots-rock ensembles
\naren’t supposed to make hit records, y’see, but CC just did it
\ntwice in a row. Who knows how many more albums of wonderful CC
\nartistry the success of these two songs will earn us fans?<\/p>\n
And the bottom line is, “Accidentally In Love” is a terrific
\nsong, bouncy and appealing, but with just the right undercurrent of
\ndoubt to both illustrate the storyline and give the track itself
\nsome emotional depth.<\/p>\n
The rest of the soundtrack — much of which is
\nsurprise!<\/i> actually used in the movie — is a mixed but
\nmostly interesting bag. Truth be told, the disc is worth it alone
\nfor the juxtaposition of Lipps, Inc.’s uber-cheesy disco classic
\n“Funkytown” with the Eels’ brooding, plaintive “I Need Some Sleep.”
\n(And really, how cute is it that they used one of the handful of
\nsongs about insomnia out there that
\nwasn’t<\/i> written and recorded by Counting Crows?)<\/p>\n
Other highlights include Butterfly Boucher dueting with David
\nBowie on his “Changes” — the Thin White Duke tries out an
\nalternate delivery that freshens up the old nugget nicely — and
\nPete Yorn’s barn-burning jangle-rock take on “Ever Fallen In Love.”
\nThe actors get in on the fun, too. Jennifer Saunders of
\nAbsolutely Fabulous<\/i> fame, who voices the Fairy Godmother in
\nthe movie, has a blast pouring the megawattage into “Holding Out
\nFor A Hero,” and Murphy — who once cut a respectable r & b
\nalbum — partners with Antonio Banderas for a pure-silly-fun
\nrendition of “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”<\/p>\n
Strong contributions from Dashboard Confessional, Tom Waits and
\nNick Cave & the Bad Seeds round out the notables on this
\ndiverse and frequently entertaining disc. There’s nothing
\nlife-changing here, but it’s reliably frothy, sassy fun — kinda
\nlike the movie
\nShrek 2<\/i>, or Eddie Murphy back in the ’80s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5729],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-37974","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-soundtrack","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37974","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37974"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}