Musical – My (life in) music lists

Best film soundtracks: Honourable mentions

And now for something completely different… er… perhaps just a mild change of pace.

I’ve been doing these ‘Best albums’ series pretty regularly since I started this blog close to 10 years ago. But up to now, each of these series have been focused on a specific year, whether it be an end of the year recap of faves or a fond nostalgic look back on a certain year. For my first ‘Best albums’ series of the year, however, I’ve decided instead to go thematic and focus on my favourite ever motion picture soundtracks.

Back when I was a teenager and into my early twenties, I was a rabid cinephile. Indeed, I almost spent as much time watching films as did listening to music. It was a love I got from my mother, who’d been watching films since her own youth and began collecting films as soon as they were available in a format to watch from home, first on VHS and later, DVD. The household collection grew quickly and I never wanted for something to watch. In fact, it was often a bigger problem and took a herculean effort to choose just one film. It wasn’t long before I had my own favourite actors, directors, and screenwriters that I would follow and typically knew when they had something new being released. After moving out of my childhood home, my film watching slowly waned and I eventually got to a point where I would watch films weekly rather than daily, quality rather than quantity.

Still, many of my favourite films are from the days of my youth. And of course, I still love sitting down to dig into a good flick. Maybe I won’t watch just anything these days but certain actors will always tempt, as will anything that focuses on writing and writers and to be sure, anything to do with music.

Which brings us back to the task at hand: film soundtracks. We’ll get down to my top ten favourites over the next few months but first, on this first day of February, I’m going to whet your appetite by sharing a handful of great soundtracks that didn’t quite make the cut.

Action!

21 (2008): A slick and hip, indie-heavy soundtrack that perhaps even out-hipped the slick, heist film that was based upon but over-sensationalized real events.
Check out: “L.S.F. (Lost souls forever” Mark Ronson feat. Kasabian

24 hour party people (2002): The soundtrack for the amazing biopic on Factory Records, Tony Wilson, and the Manchester scene features a number of artists, both well-known and lesser-known, associated with Factory.
Check out: “Love will tear us apart” Joy Division

Forrest Gump (1994): A double album of strictly American musical artists that reflect and embody the three decades – from the 50s to the 80s – that we experience of Forrest Gump’s remarkable life.
Check out: “Turn! Turn! Turn!” The Byrds

Rocky Horror picture show (1975): The soundtrack of the cult film/musical/phenomenon features the film’s cast* belting out those twisted numbers we all know and love.
Check out: “The time warp”

Stand by me (1986): Music from the 1980s film based on the Stephen King novella “The body” perfectly evokes being a teenager with your friends on an adventure at the end of summer in 1959*.
Check out: “Stand by me” Ben E. King

*Including Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Richard O’Brien, and Meat Loaf.

**Okay, I wasn’t there, but that’s how I imagine it. That’s certainly how it felt for me at that age in the 80s, but with different songs.

I’ll be back very soon with albums #10 through #6 for my Best film soundtracks list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Best tunes of 2000: #9 Björk “I’ve seen it all”

<< #10 | #8 >>

The year 2000 was my last full year living in Toronto before moving to Ottawa the following year. At the end of the summer of 2000, I moved to an apartment in Roncesvalles village and fell in with the neighbourhood. It wasn’t quite as hip and happening as it is now but it had some cool shops and restaurants and also a repertory theatre called The Revue. I spent a lot of time in that theatre, being that it was only a block from my building and admission being only slightly more than renting a DVD. I don’t remember all of the films I watched there but I definitely remember seeing “Dancer in the dark”.

The film is one not easily forgotten. Indeed, it is a real feel bad movie.

Directed by Lars Von Trier, it features Björk as Selma, a nearly blind, factory-working, single mother who escapes her existence to a daydream world of Hollywood musical numbers. I’ve heard (but cannot confirm this) that Von Trier came up with the film’s concept and hand-selected Björk for the starring role after seeing her music video for “Oh so quiet”. She wrote all the music for the film and co-wrote the lyrics with Von Trier and Sjón. Björk then released the songs on a nine-song album called “Selmasongs”. The highlight number in both the film and the soundtrack is the breathtaking “I’ve seen it all”, a song for which she received an Oscar nomination for best original song. This, of course, led to an outstanding performance at the ceremony, where she wore the “swan” dress, which sadly, is more remembered than said performance.

On the version of “I’ve seen it all” on “Selmasongs”, she duets beautifully with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke (singing the parts sung by Peter Stormare in the film) over a jarring rhythm line that morphs from the chugging of a train at the intro. Strings abound and you can almost see the technicolor images of Thom Yorke as Jeff, a man in love with Selma, as he tries to convince her to use her life savings to correct her vision. Meanwhile, Selma has long-since decided to selflessly use it to prevent her son from suffering her fate from the same degenerative disease. He pleads with her, listing the things she’s never experienced, “You’ve never been to Niagara Falls?” But Björk is unshaken. “I have seen water, its water, that’s all.”

Heart-breaking, much like her performance in the film.