One of the biggest complaints I can have with a soundtrack is
\nthat the musical selections drag on for long past the point where
\nthey’re welcomed. Maybe the selections also aren’t that
\ninteresting, or they take a particular musical theme and bludgeon
\nit to death by repeating it ad nauseam.<\/p>\n
In the case of Alan Silvestri’s score for
\nThe Mexican<\/i> – yet another movie I have not seen – I don’t
\nhave this complaint. If anything, I’m complaining that the
\nselections are far too short.<\/p>\n
This might sound like a weird thing to say, but Silvestri’s
\ncompositions have enough charm on their own, but with most clocking
\nin at around the one to two-minute range, it often feels like an
\nidea is being stifled before it really had time to mature into
\nsomething special. It’s not that these short snippets are bad; it’s
\njust that I wanted to hear more.<\/p>\n
At times, Silvestri paints a picture of a film that could well
\nhave been a classic Western movie (“Blame Shifting,” “10% Clint”),
\nyet he keeps the flavor of the movie’s theme (“Oye,” “Oye, Oye,”
\nEsquivel’s “El Cable”). The flow of these tracks and musical themes
\nis as natural as a running stream, and Silvestri is able to tie
\nthese together well with even some more modern-sounding selections
\n(“Frank’s Dead,” “The Mexican,” “Airport”).<\/p>\n
Here’s where not seeing the movie hurts my judgment of the
\nsoundtrack. With all of these wonderful mood-setting pieces, what
\nis the purpose of including songs which, on the surface, don’t feel
\nlike they belong? Maybe I need to see the film in order to
\nunderstand how Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,”
\nWar’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends,” Men Without Hats’s “The Safety
\nDance” and Dean Martin’s “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You”
\nfit into the grand scheme of things. That all said, it’s nice to
\nhear some of these tracks again (namely War and Men Without
\nHats).<\/p>\n
One quick side note: My vote for “Best Song Title Of The Year” –
\n“A Good F’ing Reason”. ‘Nuff said.<\/p>\n
If
\nThe Mexican<\/i> is missing anything, I do wish some more of a
\nvocal presence, as on “Oye” and “Oye, Oye,” was included in this
\nmusic. It might have distracted from the action on the screen, but
\nsometimes, it feels like the music is calling for this one little
\naddition to the mix.<\/p>\n
Silvestri does succeed with
\nThe Mexican<\/i>, even if I don’t understand some song placement
\nand I find myself wishing that he had stretched out many of these
\nselections into some grandiose pieces. But this disc proves to be
\nquite the entertaining listen, and is well worth your time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5729],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39481","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\/39481","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=39481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39481"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39481"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}