Song, by Toad

End of Year List Bonanza

Righty-ho, readers of Toad, here’s your chance to get stuck in and tell me what a clueless phillistine I am even more vociferously than you normally do in the comments section.

For the end of the year I will be making a few lists of my own: a Top Twenty list of albums, and a Festive Fifty of individual songs. However, it would be nice to have reader lists as well, so I reckon everyone should email a list of the following:

1. Top ten albums,
2. Top ten songs,
3. Top five gigs,
4. Surprise hit of the year,
5. Biggest disappointment of the year,
6. Publication of the year (blog, magazine, whatever – just not this one),
7. Best major label release,
8. Top tip for 2009.

And the Toad ones:
1. Favourite Toad thread this year,
2. Features you’d like to see introduced,
3. Best band you wouldn’t know about if you didn’t read this.

Email me your responses (email address can be found from the ‘Contact’ link above).

Secondly, I will be writing an end of year summary post, and it would be really nice if any of you wanted to do the same. Email me a couple of mp3s that you want to represent your ‘year in music’ and write a bit about anything you want, really, just something kind of suitable for an end of year roundup. I’ll try and get a couple of musicky types to contribute as well, if I can, just to add a little bit of flavour.

For now, though, my Festive 50 list stands at about seventy songs, and my shortlist for the album of the year is this: Barton Carroll, Bombadil, Langhorne Slim, Felice Brothers, Meursault, Devotchka, Elbow, Pale Young Gentlemen, The Low Lows, Aidan John Moffat, The Cave Singers, The Pictish Trail, Dodos, Gerry Mitchell & Little Sparta, Donny Hue & the Colors, Micah P. Hinson, Ghostkeeper, Honeytrap, Johnny Flynn and Shearwater.  I’ll whittle it all down over the next couple of days.

So until then, I leave you with something rather nice I happened across recently: a young lady called Hafdis Huld, from Iceland. She sounds so incredibly Waiting Room friendly that I assume DC must have played her before – not a million miles away from Soko or Hello Saferide, for example. She’s someone I intend to listen to more in the coming year, so see what you make of these two.

Hafdis Huld – Ski Jumper

Hafdis Huld – Tomoko

From – Thoughts?

Here’s a bit of a weird one, Toadlings. I am going to moderate all comments on this post and then approve them all at once, after everyone has had a chance to weigh in. The reason for this is because I want to avoid any sort of peer conformity, and want a pure and honest opinion from everyone. Sound a bit contrived? Well let’s give it a go, shall we.

From is a band, and From is Roni Brunn.  She’s had something of a varied career, from handbag designer to web developer, and has some pretty hefty academic credentials  behind her – she majored in economics at Harvard, and is a self-taught musician.  All this is from her own bio, so I couldn’t tell you if any of it is embellished, but it’s an impressive list.

The reason for this blind-commenting, secret ballot nonsense is this: I have been involved in a conversation about this music, and one where I was very, very much at odds with the other party, and surprisingly so since we tend to agree on musical things.  The two opinions went vaguely along these lines: Argument A: she is a self-promoting, talentless joke; Argument B: the early stuff isn’t that good, but the new single is really infectious and it will be interesting to see where she goes from here.  Basically, given that our opinions were so completely at odds, we both thought it would be really interesting to get an entirely innocent and non-partisan reaction from Toad readers, which is what this is.

Here is her website so you can check that out, and here are three songs to help you make up your minds:

The new single: From – One Spring Away
The cover version:From – Fall On Me
The old song: From – American Girl

So, we need answers.  Remember that she is an unsigned artist so if you are going to come down on the negative side of this argument, don’t be too mean, in case she reads this, but basically we’d like to know: promising popstrel or worthless waif?

If you do like it, remember to chip in your $0.89 here at Amazon.

And here’s the video of American Girl, as further grist to the mill:

Introduce Your Records Shop #5: Elvis Shakespeare

[The latest in our Introduce Your Local Record Shop series is Bart. Bart is not only in pretty much every band in Edinburgh, most notably the superb Eagleowl, but also the evil mastermind behind The Gentle Invasion, who put on some of the best gigs in the city.]

I’ve been trying to find a way to write about this as a music fan, rather than a musician or promoter, but inevitably it’s as a promoter of gigs that I have most experience of the record shops in Edinburgh. I have a poster run that starts at Elvis Shakespeare on Leith Walk and goes up along the bridges, finishing at the Southern Bar on South Clark street. This occurs at least once a month, depending on what I have on.

Elvis Shakespeare is my favorite record store in the city, so it’s no accident that I start there. It’s a genuinely nice shop – well stocked, and so cramped for room (as the best record stores are), but the bright walls and wooden flooring make it feel spacious and welcoming. It doubles as a second hand bookstore (hence the name), and you can also get a cup of tea or coffee. The two guys that work there know me quite well (purely from doing this monthly poster run), and when I stop in we always have a chat about what the current poster’s for, what else I’ve been up to, and how things are going in general. It’s just nice spending time there.

They also run in-store gigs, which have included some of the best shows I’ve been to in Edinburgh. (the photo is from when Thomas Truax played there earlier this year, which could barely be described as an in-store gig, since he spent as much time running up and down Leith Walk, singing in the windows of the neighbouring shops).

But it was as a music fan I first went to Elvis Shakespeare. The first purchase I made was a German release of one of Morricone’s Dollars Trilogy soundtracks (I forget which one, though the title was translated into German anyway). Meeting Dave, the owner, at the counter for the first time, he proceeded to explain that a lot of the records in the store were from his own collection, and he picked up that particular one whilst living in Europe. This may not sound like much, but from that short conversation, I was hooked. To have that small bit of background – to know that the record had a part in someone’s life, and was now being passed on to be a part in someone else’s life (it was a present for a friend’s birthday) was really exciting. It’s that connection that’s important, and why I love record stores in general. It’s not just the music that’s important, it’s how the music fits into your life. We frequent these record stores and we have long online discussions about what Micah P. Hinson album is slightly superior – not because we quite like music, but because we’re genuine music fans. I mean I like tea, but I don’t have epic debates about whether Earl Grey is more refreshing than Darjeeling [It isn't - Toad]. Music is part of out lives. And it’s nice to see a music shop that’s run by people with the same outlook.

Oh yeah, songs.
Ghost of David, title track from the Damien Jurado album which was recommended to me by David at Elvis Shakepeare, and has since become one of my favorites.
Damien Jurado – Ghost of David

And The Chase from the Fistful of Dollars soundtrack. I’m pretty sure that was my first purchase at Elvis Shakespeare. Also, it kicks ass.
Fistful of Dollars Soundtrack – The Chase

Introduce Your Record Shop #4: The Biggest of the Lot

[Next in the series is Dylan, resident Toad photographer and beer-guzzler extraordinaire. Needless to say, he's being a smart arse about the whole thing,]

To a certain degree, an aptitude for lateral thought has to be a good thing.

However, I often find myself worrying about my lateral-thinking skills. I’m concerned that I think too laterally on times, and I often find it hard to think in normal straight ahead lines.

So, when we were asked to think about independent record shops; those dark little crypts full of racks of musty-smelling vinyl, with posters for the Pixies and The Jesus And Mary Chain on the wall and a long-haired youth behind the counter, dressed in black and wearing an array of motorcycle components in his face, my mind inevitably went off on a bizarre tangent.

I found myself idly wondering where the biggest independent record store in the world would be, and what it would be like. Such a place would surely be a significant force for good in the arena of independent music which we all hold dear, wouldn’t it?

Then, in a genuine moment of epiphany, I figured out exactly where it was, and with that, exactly what I was going to write about. more »

Introduce Your Record Shop #3: Townsend Records

[The third in our Introduce Your Local Record Shop series is the first celebrity post, in which local pop superstar and all round glamorous lothario, the Russell Brand of Edinburgh, Rob St. John describes his deprived upbringing in a tiny little village in Hobbiton somewhere.  He's going to kill me for this, isn't he.]

Independent record shops have a pivotal role in the expansion and evolution of many people’s listening habits and I’m no exception. I grew up in village in rural Lancashire, and Townsend Records was the only record shop (ok, I’m definitely excluding Woolworths) in the nearest market town, Clitheroe. Now, in communities this size, to be viewed as ‘indie’ or ‘alternative’ is as easy as watching MTV2 or dabbing on a bit of black mascara. There’s very little of the one-upmanship (“what do you mean you don’t own Tigermilk on vinyl, you philistine!?”) I later encountered and wholeheartedly avoid in the inevitable move to the big-ish city. Even the “The band” explosion of the Libertines/Strokes/White Stripes in my late teens caused barely a ripple outside a devoted few. Mentioning Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy brought a response of “yeah, he’s that Scottish guy – dead, isn’t he?”

Yet in this musical backwater, with no bands (except, ahem, Zydeco Blues, lets say little more on that..) and aside from one multimillion white elephant of a venue run by religious zealots who wouldn’t allow gigs, no venues, Townsend did, and still does, pretty well. We had sporadic and slow internet, and very little preconception of what was “in” and what wasn’t. Hearing new music was pretty much the Peel Show or mate’s compilations. This was two or three years before file-sharing became accessible to us. As a result, the varied, even unashamedly random stocking policy in store led to adventures in buying CDs for their name/cover art/vague recommendation etc, resulting in some huge successes (Television, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mercury Rev, Pavement, The Beta Band) and some shockers which I still look at ruefully in my CD collection (Athlete remain the main culprits here).

There was a 3 for £20 deal on all but the newest CDs, but the stock at the shop was so low that there were barely ever three CDs you cared to buy. So we learnt to covertly accumulate viable purchases in out-of-the-way and dusty parts of the shop like classical and “golden oldies” and hope that in the next week new stock would arrive to make up the deficit. Sometimes, of course they would disappear in the interim, though I do like the idea that a classical music fan happened upon and subsequently bought the GY!BE or Soundgarden CD I was stashing. Compared to these (slightly wealthier, but not much) days, I bought so much more music then. We were the poorest patrons around, and that the shop still survives in such a musically stagnant town heartens me, particularly when bigger and more varied independent shops in cities are closing their doors. As ever, if you are in the area (and I would recommend it for a day or a week, though not 18 years), pop in, have a look, keep tiny indie shops like this alive, some of my 3 for £20 stashes will probably still be in the free jazz section, slowly eroding.

Here’s three discoveries from albums that still remain favourites:

Gomez – Get Miles (from Bring It On)
Mercury Rev – Holes (from Deserter’s Songs)
Television – Friction (from Marquee Moon)

Introduce Your Record Shop #2: Rotate This

New Front

[Next up in our series where readers and general pals introduce their local record shops is JC, author of The Vinyl Villain, pretty much the model of mp3 blogging to which we should all aspire: honest, personal, knowledgable and enthusiastic.]

Last year, I spent four months working in Toronto, and it didn’t take me any time at all to find myself getting immersed in the local music scene.

It’s a city with loads of great venues for bands to play – with many of them charging way below what we are used to in the UK. And as for the record stores??? Three in particular stand out – Sonic Boom, Soundscapes and Rotate This and I could happily waffle on about any or all of them. But I’ll go for what is the most established of the three – Rotate This.

Its got a great mix of CDs and vinyl, new and second-hand, and it doesnt have staff that sneer at your own peculiar tastes. It also sells tickets for just about all the gigs in the city, from the smallest pub to the main arenas, never charging more than $1 or $2 in commission. What more could you ask for??? more »

Introduce Your Record Shop #1: Winchester Wax

[This is the first in a series where Toad readers introduce us to their favourite local record shops. Little independents like this are going out of business at a rate of knots, and they become very personal places to music fans, so I thought it would be a nice topic for us all to chip in about. Starting us off is Adam from Pretending Life is Like a Song, one of my oldest blog pals.]

Winchester Wax changed me. It opened in about 1981, when I was 12. Until then, records had, more or less, been a birthday treat or a Christmas present. I’d just reached the stage where I could buy myself a single each week if I could do without, well, sweets and comics (and I had a friend who bought every number one single for a time in this way) but no more than that. And then suddenly just a few minutes walk from home, on the way into town, there was a second hand record store. Records became a right and not a privilege and nothing was the same ever again.

It was the simplest of shops – tables around the wall and an island of tables in the middle of the room, a cash desk against the back wall, a glass front. Nothing much on the walls. All of the tables around the edge full of boxes of albums, except for straight ahead as you came in which was shared by the one pound box and an every growing number of 12″ singles. The island table was full of singles.

At first I played it safe – I didn’t buy anything unless I knew I could sing along with it – but this was the summer that I came home from a holiday at a Cousin’s house with my first mixtape – The Undertones, The Sex Pistols, The Jam – and before long I was fleshing out my knowledge of these with weekly purchases, rushed straight home to what was then the only working record player, sat in the living room, and sat and listened hard. On the rare occasions that the 7″ sleeve had lyrics I would burn them into my skull. More often there was scribblings and ideas to convince me that I understood more about the song and the artist than I ever could have done without this great find. more »

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept it…

Right, it’s about time we had another reader participation event. This one is a good one too, and hopefully should be a lot of fun to take part in. The assignment? As follows:

I would like you to introduce us to your local record shop. Go in, take a couple of pictures, have a chat with the staff or the manager if you can be bothered, and write it up. Email me a post to put on the site, along with a couple of mp3s from albums you have bought there. It doesn’t have to be a great big clever post, just a little bit about a record shop which you think embodies the spirit of independent music that we’re trying to encourage here. And email it, don’t just write it in the comments, because that’s pointless.

Edinburgh folks will have to take first dibs in the comments section, because there aren’t that many record shops around here, so good luck to yez. I may pick somewhere in Austria because I doubt anyone else will pick that and I actually spent a lot of money on vinyl during my Vienna years.

Anyway, get writing, and get them emailed to me by the end of next weekend (the 7th I think) and I’ll post them all over the course of the week. And to commemorate the idea of great record shops, I hated the film and I think Nick Hornby is a risibly bad writer, but High Fidelity is one of the most sincere homages (it rhymes with cabbages so pronounce the fucking ‘h’ you barbarians) to the small record shop going, so here are a couple of songs from the soundtrack.

Smog – Cold Blooded Old Times
The Velvet Underground – Oh! Sweet Nuthin’
Bob Dylan – Most of the Time

Soundtracks #10 – Grand Finale – Why Soundtracks Just Don’t Work

[This is the final post in this splendid series, and a massive thank you to all who have taken part. This all started a couple of months ago when Ian, guitarist with Toad favourite Broken Records, sent me a message about having a soundtrack rant brewing. It went largely along the lines of 'don't get me started'. Mrs. Toad then suggested making it into a feature where everyone can make a contribution, and here we go. I think I let it go on a little long - maybe a week maximum next time - but it has been splendid fun, and I thought it only fair that Ian, the man whose fault the whole thing is in the first place, be allowed the final say.]

My rant about soundtracks is a bit different to Mr Toad’s previous postings on the subject of the great “music-inspired-by” rip-off. My main truck with soundtracks is that, on the whole, they are thoroughly unsatisfying to listen to as albums. Now, you may think that a little unfair – soundtracks are meant to work in conjunction with the film and this is arguably the best context in which to appreciate them. But if you like the music you might well be tempted to buy the album as well and more often than not I’ve found myself thoroughly disappointed with the final results. And here’s why.

To make this clearer I think there are two main types of soundtrack. First is ‘The Compilation’ which usually involves various artists often from differing eras and vastly differing musical styles. This is all well and good for undemanding teen-comedy-high-school-frat-boy bollocks [Mrs. Toad sharpens claws!] where the music is often not much more than a background collage of whatever current bland pop nonsense has been in the charts that year. But this is not the sort of soundtrack I’m going to listen to anyway. I’m as guilty as anyone of becoming a sucker for the shuffle function on my ipod but I’m also a traditionalist who likes to listen to albums from beginning to end and it should be no different to soundtracks. When a compilation soundtrack tracklisting jars horribly and there are only a couple of decent tracks on there you might as well be on shuffle.

A case where I think a compilation soundtrack probably comes closest to working as an album is 24 Hour Party People. You may argue it’s no more than a “Best of Factory Records” album, but the songs are integral to the film (they bloody well should be in a music biopic!), well chosen and chronicle the development of a musical movement over time. Sure the Durutti Column songs jar with the Happy Mondays, but this is not such an issue because they have a shared context. There’s also an excellent beefed up mix of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control” which is worth the price alone.

Another fairly successful soundtrack which I’ll defend to the bitter end is (deep breath) the Forrest Gump soundtrack (don’t hurt me!). Dreadful film. Great soundtrack. As a compilation it follows the development of American pop music from Elvis to Lynyrd Skynyrd. On top of that it’s chronological which makes it less of a jump in style and as a result the whole thing flows rather nicely. My only criticisms are the omission of certain songs that featured in the film (The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, etc) but this was probably down to legal and licensing issues, and the addition of Alan Silvestri’s original score piece “Forrest Gump Suite” in all its overly sentimental and bland glory. But at least it’s at the end of a double album and you’ve probably got your money’s worth by that point.

It seems that what often makes a good soundtrack is the directorial input and proper use of the songs in the narrative of the film itself. One director whose soundtracks usually hit the mark, despite a positively deranged level of eclecticism is Mr Tarantino. Almost. He probably gets away with it because the song choices can be pretty obscure and he seems to have an uncanny knack for melding the songs with the images to create iconic scenes. He’s been so successful at this that I defy anyone who’s seen Reservoir Dogs to not immediately think of ears and razor blades any time they hear Stealers Wheel. But what makes Tarantino soundtracks fail as great-to-listen-to albums is the constant interruption of snippets of dialogue from the film itself. I don’t think many would say the man doesn’t have a talent for language and witty dialogue, but by Christ do they grate on about the 4th or 5th listen. I’ve therefore removed as many dialogue tracks as possible when transferring these sorts of soundtracks to iTunes just for preservation of my own sanity.

The other main type of soundtrack is the “Original Score”. In theory, this should be more satisfying to listen to because it ought to be a more coherent piece of work as a whole. It will probably have been composed to match the footage and will likely have a consistent theme. But I’ve often found that this is another way that soundtracks fail to satisfy. In many cases the composer will start with a theme and develop, repeat and vary it for the duration of the film. While this may work well in conjunction with the film, as a soundtrack album such repetition can become very trying. If the music is composed to fit a scene of a certain length this usually results in some very short album tracks of under a minute but where bugger all happens other than a main theme played a slightly different way. And that just becomes tedious.

Two examples of this are the soundtracks for The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, both by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis. The Proposition is probably the reason I got thinking about soundtracks in the first place. When Mr Toad pointed out that one of our Broken Records tracks had an (unintentionally) identical opening couple of bars to one of The Proposition tracks, I began wondering how I hadn’t noticed. I realised that although I had listened to it a couple of times it hadn’t sunk in to listen to as an album because there was so much repetition and very short tracks. Don’t get me wrong – I love Mr Cave and I think as a soundtrack to accompany the film it is incredibly atmospheric and coherent (I suppose it helps that the script and the soundtrack were both written by him), but it’s not something that would go on my stereo regularly. And, for me, with it’s longer pieces and wider variety of themes, the Jesse James soundtrack is far more palatable to listen to.

Probably the best example of a composer getting it so right and so wrong is Michael Nyman. While his score for The Piano has some of the most beautiful pieces of music ever put to film (I drove my flatmates to near violence when trying to learn how to play The Heart Asks The Pleasure First – but it’s their fault for buying me the sheet music in the first place!), it suffers from annoyingly short tracks and over-repetition of the main theme in an uninspiring variety of tempos. Where he gets it right is his soundtrack for The Draughtsman’s Contract. All the pieces are full length (often clocking in at over 6 minutes), each one significantly different in theme, and brilliantly coherent in style with its minimalist pastiche of baroque. It works perfectly with the film, and on its own. The main track, Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds, is so good it was later nicked for A Cock and Bull Story.

Probably the worst (ok – massively disappointing) soundtracks fall into a category somewhere in between. The ones that don’t know what they’re trying to be by combining original score with painfully incongruous compilation tracks annoy the tits off me. A Clockwork Orange does everything so well with the contrast between the traditional orchestral versions of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and the Walter/Wendy Carlos Moog versions. Then Singin’ In the Rain comes out of nowhere and just ruins everything. Why on earth is it on there? I know it’s a key scene in the film but it simply doesn’t fit. And Burgess hated it, so there.

But the one soundtrack that pisses me off so much that my teeth begin to itch is Out of Sight. It’s a good film and the David Holmes score is really quite funky. But whoever put the soundtrack together is an appalling excuse for a human being and thoroughly deserves to have their ears removed with a rusty razor-blade (cf paragraph on Tarantino….). In this case the tunes admittedly don’t jar too badly, with the Isley Brothers and Dean Martin nuzzling up to David Holmes lazy funk, but it would have been better if it was just a David Holmes-only score. It’s guilty of pretty much everything cited above – crap dialogue inserts, tracks that don’t go anywhere and just a general lack of coherence. More film stars should be like George Clooney. He’s just a bit too cool with his 50’s matinee idol style his renaissance-man skills for acting, directing, writing and production. But after listening to him use up the first minute and a half of the soundtrack effortlessly smooth-talking his way through a bank-job while simultaneously smooth-talking his way into the cashier’s gusset, it all gets a bit smug. But then, THEN, the intro to It’s Your Thing wafts in. Which is great. But Clooney still hasn’t finished cracking on to the scared, yet curiously aroused, cashier and it just spoils everything.

A similar thing happens at the end of Dean Martin’s Ain’t that a Kick in the Head. It’s all going brilliantly until the final line is cut off by faux radio static. Why would anyone think that’s a good idea? Why? That aside, the whole soundtrack is peppered with intrusive and infuriatingly mediocre dialogue. I’m not sure which fuck-wit is responsible (and I hope it isn’t Soderbergh, please let it just be some studio goon) but they’ve really arsed the whole thing up. At least Tarantino has the decency to make dialogue tracks separate. Out of Sight is just destroyed by crap dialogue inserted over the music. What a bloody waste.

I could go on about many, many more soundtracks but I fear I would either bore you or make myself incredibly angry. However, these are the ones that I think work and those that really don’t.

Got it Right:
Michael Nyman – The Draughtsman’s Contract (see above)
Clint Mansell – The Fountain (Good long tracks and varied but coherent themes. And a dream partnership of Mogwai/Kronos Quartet!)
Various – 24 Hour Party People (see above)
Yann Tiersen – Amelie (works well on it’s own and nicely reworked instrumental versions of his older songs. Although points off for being lazy and recycling some tracks in his soundtrack for Goodbye Lenin)

Got it Wrong:
David Holmes/Various – Out of Sight (Bollocks. See above.)
Various – Friday Night Lights (Don’t bother – just buy The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky instead.)
David Holmes/Various – Out of Sight (Again. It really has made me that angry.)

The Isley Brothers – It’s Your Thing
The Michael Nyman Band – Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds
Joy Division – She’s Lost Control
Dean Martin – Ain’t That a Kick in the Head
Yann Tiersen – Comptine D’un Autre Été: L’après Midi

Posts in this series:
- Crash Calloway from Pretending Life is Like a Song writes about The Commitments.
- Nate, who plays viola in The Young Republic explains why some terrible films have excellent scores.
- My dearest darling Mrs. Toad sings the praises of the High School Movie.
- DC, presenter of The Waiting Room, goes on a truly interminable ramble about the great Tom Waits and One From the Heart.
- Brother of Toad talks about how the context of music can interfere with its use in a movie.
- John sums up Natural Born Killers in three sentences.
- I have a go myself by writing about the art of referencing films in your song lyrics and what it lets you do.
- Tim from The Daily Growl digs away at the sensual texture of In the Mood For Love.
- Matt from Draped in Velvet might never forgive the false start of the world of rap-rock.
- Ian from Broken Records delivers the rant that started this all off: why soundtracks just don’t work!

Soundtracks #9 – Judgment Night

[One of the things I have been utterly fucking dreadful at recently is exploring the world of new music blogs. Blogs pop up all the time, some last and some don't. Matthew from Draped in Velvet got in touch to pop over a post about a film and music I don't know from a blogger I don't know, so I think it's fantastic that he wants to post in this series. It's also a really good piece of writing (like I'm qualified to judge) from a blog with a mere nineteen posts to its name, so go and have a look at his stuff. Here he writes about a soundtrack he loves, and a film that utterly failed to live up to it...]

Alas I am a fellow burdened with many musical and movie guilty pleasures. Should you know me then perhaps you may have heard me pontificate at length on the many hidden merits of Kevin Costner’s universally panned epic ‘WaterWorld‘ or even share my delight and passion for the post-modern classic that is ‘Last Action Hero‘- however possibly my favorite soundtrack comes from a film, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, even I can’t justify its existence. Yet because of its outstanding soundtrack I will bravely (and somewhat foolishly) endure the appauling movie every time its shown on TV.Firstly, let me assure you that I acquired this compilation on the strength of the album’s first single: ‘Another Body Murdered’ by Samoan hip hop giants BOO-YAA T.R.I.B.E and Faith No More, rather than as a direct result of watching the movie. This single had everything an middle class white boy living in a sleepy town could possibly wish for; chug-a-long metal guitars, Mike Patton’s trademark bonkers screaming and some fat guys in hats taking about street crime and gang culture.

Having annoyed my family and the surrounding neigbours with the endless repeat plays of this track, I popped into my local Our Price (at the time my local town’s only record store) and ordered myself a copy of the album on cassette after it received favourable reviews in Select Magazine. Approximately 2-3 weeks later I received a phone call informing me that said purchase had arrived.

I listened wide mouthed and in awe as I walked back home from town with the album playing on my cruddy Matusi Personal Stereo. The likes of Mudhoney & Sir Mix-A-Lot waxing lyrical on subject matters I couldn’t possible comprehend (I just liked how it sounded), Slayer & Ice T’s L.A 92 riot themed track ‘Disorder’ cleared my sinuses and scared the be-Jesus out of me; and of course Pearl Jam & Cypress Hill’s ‘Real Thing’ (which was surprisingly a million times better than the other Cypress Hill collaboration with Sonic Youth on ‘Mary Jane’) which on its first listen gave me goosebumps.

The two stand out tracks amongst these ‘masterpieces’ are Dinosaur Jr & Del The Funky Homosapien’s ‘Missing Link’ which, like the other finer collaborations featured on the album, balanced the two artists’ inputs evenly to produce this spiffing example of genre crossing music. A truly great and very much under appreciated MC accompanied by a truly great and much under appreciated guitarist (and in this instance drummer and producer). This song contains as good of a guitar lick that Mascis has ever committed to record.

As good as their collective efforts were, the other standout track, Teenage Fanclub & Del A Soul’s ‘Fallin’ is this bar none this compilation’s crowning achievement and also makes rather good use of a Tom Petty sample to boot. Perhaps it stands out so clearly as it’s the only laid back tune on the album surrounded for the most part by bands laden with loud and abrasive guitars and rock drumming.

Thumb clicks, laid back clean guitar strumming, tambourines and the understated rhythm section from The Fannies provide the backing for the equally laid back rappers. Even now some 15 years after its original release, I include this song on mix tapes for friends and family unaware of this songs existence and the results (to anyone with a soul) are very much the same as when I first heard it all those many moons ago. A serene smile will creep its way on to ones lips, followed by the warm feeling of content washing over you.

It pained me when some two years later after many thousands of listens of this compilation, I finally watched the film which featured everyone’s favorite Bill Hicks impersonator Dennis Leary, all round annoying dick Cuba Gooding Jr supporting everyones favourite Martin Sheen offspring Emilio Estevez. Aside from the poor dialogue, bad direction and for the most part poor acting, I was incredibly angered that the music was used so sparsely throughout.

As the whole Rage Against The Machine (and to a lesser degree Senser-and to an even lesser degree Collapsed Lung) had taken off with a angry explosion back in 92/93, I was surprised that there was so few rap/rock outfits emerging at the time. I thought that I’d heard the future. I thought the merging of two of my favourite music genres would create some form of utopian musical society, uniting the world and putting an end to poverty, war and disease. Naturally, this vision never came to fruition and it pained me to see the rap/rock genre was to take off several years later with disastrous effects thanks to Fred bleedin’ Durst, tainting the phrase ‘rap-rock’ for evermore. Lest we not forget just how close to perfection this brave artists got on this album.

I certainly haven’t.

Faith No More & Boo Yaa T.R.I.B.E – Another Body Murdered
Dinosaur Jr & Del The Funky Homosapien – Missing Link

Posts in this series:
- Crash Calloway from Pretending Life is Like a Song writes about The Commitments.
- Nate, who plays viola in The Young Republic explains why some terrible films have excellent scores.
- My dearest darling Mrs. Toad sings the praises of the High School Movie.
- DC, presenter of The Waiting Room, goes on a truly interminable ramble about the great Tom Waits and One From the Heart.
- Brother of Toad talks about how the context of music can interfere with its use in a movie.
- John sums up Natural Born Killers in three sentences.
- I have a go myself by writing about the art of referencing films in your song lyrics and what it lets you do.
- Tim from The Daily Growl digs away at the sensual texture of In the Mood For Love.
- Matt from Draped in Velvet might never forgive the false start of the world of rap-rock.
- Ian from Broken Records delivers the rant that started this all off: why soundtracks just don’t work!