Tag: Alternative Rock

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Albums

Best film soundtracks: #5 “Sucker punch” (2011)

So much for getting through my top five soundtracks ‘over the next month’!

Honestly, I wanted to get this particular piece posted almost two months ago, not long after I shared the last piece in this series counting down albums ten through six. But then, I got the brilliant idea that I wanted to rewatch all of the films for the top five soundtracks to remind myself of the films and how the music interacted with each. Great idea, yes, but with the Olympics* pretty much killing all my free time for half of February, then, the post-Olympics letdown for a few weeks, and feeling a bit rundown from the busy season at work, the unplanned blogging hiatus, well, I’ve had a hard time getting myself organized.

I finally got around to rewatching “Sucker punch” on the last Friday of February and am kind of glad that I did. ‘Glad’ because I realized I really only had a basic memory of the film’s events and ‘kind of’ because I found myself a little more disappointed with it this time around. As I mentioned back in November, when I posted about one of the tracks below for my 100 best covers list, I actually saw the film for the first time in the theatres with a group of friends from work. And while most of them were familiar with the film’s concept and the filmmaker’s previous work, I had no preconceptions, had no idea what the film was about or what I was getting into beforehand and found myself caught up in the spectacle of it.

The film was co-written and directed by Zack Snyder, who had already cut his teeth remaking zombie classic “Dawn of the dead” (2004) and adapting two comic book series in “300” (2006) and “Watchmen” (2009). In fact, I had always thought “Sucker punch” was also based on a comic book or graphic novel and only found out it was an original concept after rewatching and sitting down to write this post. The visual style and action sequences are very reminiscent of Snyder’s previous two films and in effect, it very much looks like you are watching a moving comic book. The story follows a young woman committed to a mental institution by her ‘wicked stepfather’ after framing her for the murder of her sister and then bribes one of the crooked attendants to get her lobotomized. What follows next is a mixture and layers of fantasy upon fantasy, a mishmash of action genres and epic effects, as Baby doll (our heroine) attempts to both survive and escape the circumstances in which she finds herself.

The soundtrack only adds to the vibe of the film, consisting of mashups and reimaginings of songs that many might find familiar. Each is used to backdrop specific scenes or parts of the movement forward, most obviously for the scenes in which Baby doll is ‘dancing’ her way through each step of her mission. And that vague song familiarity adds to the dreamlike quality of the film and the blending and questioning of reality.

It’s a brilliantly orchestrated soundtrack that works just as well as without the film, given that it’s a total mood piece, and can be listened to all the way through as such. If you haven’t seen the film or heard the soundtrack, my three picks for you will give you good taste what you may or may not be missing.

“Sweet dreams (are made of this)” Emily Browning: The opening track on the soundtrack is also the first song we hear in the film. It provides the backing and movement and emotional drive for the opening scenes in which the stage is set. Playing like a flashback or a ‘previously on’ montage, the sinister and haunting music delivers the protagonist from her childhood home to a mental institution with no prospect of happiness or safe return. Interestingly, this cover of the Eurythmics classic is sung by the actress playing said main character (Emily Browning sings on two other tracks on the soundtrack as well). It is orchestral rock with an industrial beat and Browning delivers Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart’s lyrics in a lounge/triphop style. And if you listen really closely you can pick out pieces of songs and themes that appear in elsewhere on the soundtrack, a sort of foreshadowing of sorts.

“White rabbit” Emilíana Torinni: Icelandic singer/songwriter Emilíana Torrini’s cover of the Jefferson Airplane psych classic underpins one of the aforementioned ‘dance’ sequences. During our heroines’ plot to steal the map of the hospital, Baby Doll’s dance morphs into a World War I action movie adventure. The song’s choice for the film works perfectly with its themes of fantasy and dreams and reality. And Torrini’s eerie and bold vocals stand up brilliantly to those of Grace Slick’s original. The music is a dreamy pastiche, nodding to 60s sci-fi soundtrack sound effects, indian folk music, symphonic rock, and more of that industrial angst. It is explosive and full of verve.

“Where is my mind” Yoav feat. Emily Browning: Another of Emily Browning’s songs on this soundtrack also features Israel-Romanian singer/songwriter Yoav in a duet covering the early Pixies track. It appears at two pivotal points in the film, a bookend of sorts, first, as Baby Doll is checked into the hospital, and later, as she and Sweet Pea are attempting to escape. As I hinted above, this track has already received the ‘My life in music list’ treatment back in October and I wrote back then that it almost felt to me like this is the song that really spearheads the soundtrack. “It builds from a place of quiet, an almost forgotten corner of the mind, each singer adding distinct voices from distinct experiences, and then the guitars kick in and the beat picks up, everything continuing to build until the machine guns fire, the full orchestra finale, and fireworks galore.”

*I’ve been an Olympics junkie since a pre-teen. I eat, sleep, and breathe practically nothing else while they are happening, watching any event being broadcast, which is how I got hooked on curling a few Olympics ago.

We’ll be back soon(ish) with album #4. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. “Marie Antoinette” (2006)
9. “Clueless” (1995)
8. “Fear & loathing in Las Vegas” (1998)
7. “Vanilla sky” (2001)
6. “(500) days of summer” (2009)

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Categories
Albums

Best film soundtracks: Albums #10 through #6

Just over a couple of weeks ago I gave a sneak preview into my new “Best albums” series and provided a handful of ‘honourable mentions’ just to whet your appetite. If you missed that post, go on back and check it out. I’ll wait. If you’ve already perused that piece, you’d know that I am (or at least I was) almost as big a fan of films as I am of music.

What I didn’t mention two weeks ago is that I’ve never been a huge collector of film soundtracks. No. As much as I appreciate how the choice of music can elevate a film immeasurably, how much I enjoy well placed songs and picking and pointing them out when I recognize them, it’s a rare thing for me to want to sit down and listen to film soundtrack more than just the one time. The albums in this list will represent the exceptions to the rule. These are soundtracks that are not just great accompaniments to the films for which they were compiled but are also great listens in their own right. In some cases, they perfectly evoke the feeling of the films and remind of particular scenes. In others, the compilations stand on their own, even transcending the films to become a cultural phenomenon.

In today’s post, I’ll share albums ten through six of my list of ten favourite film soundtracks. Then, I’ll share the top five, giving each their due in their own post, over the next month or so, interspersed with the other lists that I’ve got on the go. As always, I welcome your comments and perhaps your own favourite soundtracks as we go.

Let’s start.

#10 “Marie Antoinette” (2006)

Sofia Coppola often used indie music to great effect in her films, especially in her early work. Her third feature length film was a biography on Marie Antoinette, beginning with her being married off to the dauphin of France and ending at the eruption of the French Revolution. If you put on the soundtrack without context, you likely wouldn’t guess the story it was meant to help tell, but accompanying the highly stylized film, it was perfect. Mostly pulled from the original wave of post punk and new wave of the 80s, which was seeing a resurgence in indie rock during the time that the film was released. Great tunes by Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Order, The Cure, and a well-placed “I want candy” by Bow Wow Wow, but the real treat was two tracks by newer indie rockers The Radio Dept., who I was just falling in love with at the time.

#9 “Clueless” (1995)

A retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, disguised as a teen rom-com, set in Beverley Hills? AS IF! It starred a very young Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd in their earliest film roles, was mildly successful in the theatres but gained traction on video, and has become something of a cult classic. Of course, in the 90s, when alt rock was king, film soundtracks had a habit of playing like a mixed tape of the hottest things or the about-to-be hottest things. “Clueless” had to be hip to be a hit with the teen audience it was targeting and it didn’t fail. It starts with some interesting covers by The Muffs (Kim Wilde), Cracker (Flamin’ Groovies), and Counting Crows (Psychedelic Furs) and rounds things out with some hit Britpop (Radiohead, Lightning Seeds, Supergrass), my favourite Bosstones track, and introduced me to The Smoking Popes.

#8 “Fear & loathing in Las Vegas” (1998)

“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.” I remember being super hyped when I first heard that “Fear & loathing”, one of my favourite books at the time, was being adapted for the screen by Terry Gilliam and would star Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro in the principal roles. I went to see it in the theatre with my friend Crissy at the Promenade Mall north of Toronto and we howled all the way through, even as the half-empty theatre drained by half that, even before the quarter mark of the film. The soundtrack features psychedelic rock of 60s, notably, Jefferson Airplane’s “White rabbit” which features prominently in a particular scene in the book, as well as Vegas residency crooners (like Tom Jones and Perry Como). Dialogue bits by Depp and Del Toro lead into most of the tracks and are interspersed between them, as if Depp is narrating the soundtrack as he does the film. A drug fuelled trip chasing the American dream.

#7 “Vanilla sky” (2001)

Back at the end of the 90s, Tom Cruise convinced Cameron Crowe (who he had worked with on “Jerry Maguire”) to remake Spanish-language film “Abre los ojos”. I went to see it in the theatre, not for Cruise, but because I’d always admired Crowe’s work. I remember enjoying it at the time but remember very little of the film, save for its surreal quality and how it was left open to the audiences’ interpretation as to what was real and what was not. Of course, Crowe’s soundtrack contributes to the dreaminess of it all. On paper it might seem eclectic, ranging from R.E.M. to Bob Dylan to The Monkees and Peter Gabriel, but collected together, it’s a beautiful thing. Indeed, this soundtrack completely changed my outlook on “Solsbury hill” and “Sweetness follows” and it also introduced me to Iceland ambient rock band Sigur Rós. Lovely stuff.

#6 “(500) Days of Summer” (2009)

“This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know upfront that this is not a love story.” “(500) days of summer” is an indie non-romantic comedy that stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and indie it-girl Zooey Deschanel as its two principals. Their story was not straightforward but it was bound to end in heartbreak. Of course, it was. It had its start in a shared love of The Smiths. In a film where the music was almost a third piece in a love triangle, an integral character, the soundtrack would without a doubt be something special. It plays like a mixed tape put together by Tom and Summer from their collective collections, featuring Doves, Black Lips, Hall & Oates (!), Feist, Regina Spector, Simon & Garfunkel, and unsurprisingly, The Smiths. And if you get the deluxe editions, you get the songs performed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Pixies’ “Here comes your man”) and Zooey Deschanel (Nancy Sinatra’s “Sugar town”) during the karaoke scene. Definitely a compilation as fun as the film it accompanies.

Stay tuned for album #5 on this list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #8 No Joy “Birthmark”

<< #9    |    #7 >>

It’s been just shy of four months since we last visited this series counting down my favourite tunes of 2020.

I don’t know that I’ve stayed away on purpose. I do have a few series on the go and the usual end of year festivities often take up lots of blog space. However, I admit that I’ve been finding 2020 an odd year to look back upon of late. Sure there was lots of great music being produced with all these musicians locked up with nothing else to do, but the rest of us were also locked up. It often feels like a lost year* and I’m sure I’m not alone with this feeling.

Indeed, every time I sat down to write this post, I found myself getting distracted by something else. Most recently, I went down the rabbit hole of looking at the timelines and the numbers of the COVID pandemic and it brought it all back. It’s perhaps easy to forget how bad things looked early on and all the fear and uncertainty. The numbers of the rates of infection, how quickly things spread, and how many deaths there were early on. Faced with the stats, it made me think how bad things could have gotten if it weren’t for the measures taken and for the mass roll outs of the vaccines worldwide. I remembered the empty grocery shelves, the low gas prices, the almost daily trips to Costco in search of toilet paper and disinfectant wipes. The stories of resilience, human nature winning out, images of deserted streets of some of the world’s biggest cities, and that video of Italian seniors singing together from the windows of each of their homes.

That last reminded me about all the stories coming out of the seniors facilities during the lockdowns. Hearing how the virus ran rampant through each of them, despite the valiant efforts of staff. How it hit certain residents hard, given their age and in some cases, already poor health, how the mortality rate was even higher. How the isolation made things even harder for loved ones to check in on family members in these homes. The word was that some were terribly frightened, remembering the previous pandemic of their youth, and some were not really understanding what was going on and feeling abandoned. And though I’m sure things are quite different and much improved in these facilities nowadays, I met and spoke to a few seniors when I was in the hospital last year and heard some stories and got a different perspective. Imagine, preferring to stay in the hospital than to return to your ‘home’.

Which brings me back to the real subject of today’s post. “Birthmark”, the number eight song on this list of my favourite tunes from 2020, was actually inspired by Jasamine White-Gluz, frontwoman and driving force behind Montreal’s No Joy, visiting a relative in senior living facility a few years before the pandemic. It’s not a protest song or a call to arms for seniors rights but it does shine a light on their humanity.

“Oh I braid your veins
Our old limbs are hard to break
No Matter when
Every lung has a line to trace”

As I wrote when No Joy’s fourth long player hit number four on my Best albums list at the end of 2020, the “opening track on the album and very first peek at the project’s first new album in five years hits like a ton of bricks. It’s the sound of 90s shoegaze gone 90s alternative dance. Think Chapterhouse’s second album “Blood music” or anything by Curve. Like the rest of the album, Jasamine White-Gluz had a lot of fun with this one in the studio, finding use for a set of bongos and apparently, a broken clarinet. The bongos are definitely front and centre and form the basis of a dance floor beckoning drum rhythm but I challenge you to point out the clarinet in the wall of sound she’s created in the loops and loops and loops.”

*There’s been a couple of those for me in the last five…

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.