silktempest's Full Review: Twilight Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Ori...
Teenagers and vampires - on surface, a match made in Heaven (or Hell). They are bloody moody creatures. Night is their environment - vampires in a bread and butter way of sorts, teenagers in their fantasies. Teenagers would love to suck the blood out of somebody's pumping neck. It's sexy and taboo. But vampires are the side effect of fantasies. It's their damned job! You have to get a life some way. As sexy gigolos, their bloodsucking business isn't all that alluring. Undercover of the night to hide from sight. Teenagers are just entrapped boredom. They want the raptures of night because their wings are not ready for flight - yet. Vampires are usually old people, encroached (think about DAVID VANIAN or, say, Bela Lugosi), teenagers are young and restless.
The next-to-last vampire movie ever released (will there be an audience after this one?), Twilight doesn't contain a single interview, not much werewolves, neither Draconian castle nor bald Nosferatu. It is a teenage love tale between a young lady and a "young" vampire. And this is definitely not the punk-o-rama of the Lost Boys. It's more or less a sanitized take on Lord Byron. Egotistical and affected.
Taking it by the soundtrack, differences are stark between the vampire myth and the teenage screen mythology.
The slightly funky, but still Gothic tune Supermassive Black Hole, possibly MUSE's best ever song, unfolds the package. The whiny vocals still suck. But undeniably, this is a stylish song - one that adds to the paranoid, creepy mood of a vampire movie with flawless Glam licks and eerie solos. It's so old...the song and the trick. For a teenage vampire movie, it's symptomatic this resort to good old stuff all over again.
Teenage superstars PARAMORE are more apt to the task, with their Emo anthems of doom and boredom. Fortunately in Decode they follow Crushcrushcrush in the urgency of guitars, forgetting about those morose ballads? Of course not. With a singer that could have been featured in the movie, PARAMORE shows just more of that teenage depression babble. But surprisingly, with hints of texture and subtlety, especially in bridges. The disenfranchised youth is aptly decoded by one of this band's best ever songs.
A band I'm not used to - THE BLACK GHOSTS - unveils the third number, Full Moon. An enjoyable Folk number, slightly haunting in the distant voices, chiming strings and fragile acoustic licks. It reminds of me of CLANNAD meets SHOCKING BLUE. Of course teenage vampires don't give a damn to those bands, unless they really live for centuries long.
LINKIN PARK's Leave Out All The Rest is another old song half-baked for inclusion in the soundtrack. In tandem with "maturing" songs by PARAMORE, LINKIN PARK grew older and better in their Minutes to Midnight record. But some things stand still, unless you think getting older is akin to trespassing cemetery gates. Leave Out All The Rest unfolds as a funereal item with decaying keyboards and melancholic vocals. Almost Trip-Hop if not for the limpid cheesy vocals reminiscent of HANSON. Quickly it becomes a predictable insipid ballad for Emos and the sort. A downer.
Another band I'm not used to, MUTEMATH follows with Spotlight - whoa, a more enthusiastic song after all? Not exactly. Imagine THE PLAIN WHITE T'S in an Arena Rock setting. You get the feeling. It's superficial and bloated and it falls short of a nice melody. Unfortunately, it doesn't deserve the spotlights even here, in this confusing soundtrack.
After the good (MUSE, THE BLACK GHOSTS), the bad (PARAMORE, LINKIN PARK) and the ugly (MUTEMATH), what shall we expect next? The old alternative Nosferatu, PERRY FARRELL, in a bizarre (even for him) twist. The leader of eerily Gothic JANE'S ADDICTION and the founder of Lollapalooza provides a definitively conventional Glam take on NINE INCH NAILS with his Go All The Way (Into the Twilight), the informal title track here. It's odd to imagine the man that crafted Jane Says, Mountain Song and Been Caught Stealing (or even Kettle Whistle and Pets, by the way) doing this kind of...Accommodation. It could have been a BUSH or SMASHING PUMPKINS b-side 10 years ago. It's decadence in high heels.
More corpses floating adrift reappear. COLLECTIVE SOUL - remember them? 15 years after Shine, December (or even Gel) we get them back with (a vengeance?) an usual retro rocker, Tremble for My Beloved. Wah Wah guitars confer the liquidity. Digital bombast updates their sound a couple decades (sounding like GOOD CHARLOTTE). Do these people know a digital drum so prominent on the forefront is the apex of distaste? At least the vocals are Pro Tooled and vocoded enough you won't even recognize the band. Another undistinguished effort - from a living dead outfit.
After so many disappointments PARAMORE bounces back with a folksy ballad, presenting Harvey Williams in her acquiescing Emo spokesmodel role. The girl has a decent voice, but backed by a lounge version of YEAH YEAH YEAHS' Maps, it sounds utterly disinteresting. The teenage umbilical worldview is mirrored by I Caught Myself's solipsism - with the smithereens of a chorus. One of the least tolerable PARAMORE songs since...They were born.
An obscure Danish group called Blue Foundation is responsible for the next number, Eyes on Fire. Half catfish Blues guitar licks, half eerie electronics, with a female voice instead of the ordinary Emo gut-shredders. But the ambience is the same - smooth depression. It sounds like an acoustic PORTISHEAD-meet-CARDIGANS - a loose canvas of abrasive misery, technically accomplished, but falling flat on surfaces. At least they are promising. 5 minutes. It takes too much time to catch fire. Nice drumming, though. Trim down proceedings, please.
The Twilight himself - Rob Pattinson! - sings the next tune, Never Think. Never think of your favorite movie star singing, shall we learn. An acoustic guitar delight, you will even forget who's singing - that's the best thing about this thing. Acoustic vampirism? He sings like a constipated JOHN CALE, which is not necessarily bad, depending on your age (under 18, that's harmless). Incredibly - it sounds heartfelt and genuine. Maybe our teenage vampire has a long and winding musical career still waiting? Indeed better than the movie itself and the solely reason for little girls to fall in love with young blood.
After Never Think we think of a post-Grunge, Indie vampire. A gory Juno, maybe? IRON & WINE Flightless Bird, American Mouth (what an Indie title) reinforces that impression. That acoustics afraid of themselves fills good in a Juno soundtrack but feels estranged in a vampire movie - unless it's Victoria's Model's vampire you are talking about. It's a pale shadow from the 1960s engaged folk - but teenages won't mind, never lived past 1996. Beautiful song, but unsettling here - teenage giving your baby for adoption is one thing, teenage loving teenage vampire is another entirely different matter. FORGET ABOUT THE MOVIE and relax, so.
I wish all vampires were JOAN BAEZ fans. But CARTER BURWELL, a renowned soundtrack composer, is somehow more ambitious and conservative, and older. With an elegy for the movie's heroine - Bella's Lullaby, a delicate piano piece - we fold the gates of teenage vampires who eerily become something older, wiser and more predictable and conventional than anyone could have though of before. It's pretty, I know. It's delicate, wow. It's...Predictable. It's Romeo and Juliet, as if they were vampires and lives past 9-11. So what? Live and let die. Die and let die. Vampires make no compromise, not even in the face of youth. Here's the compromise. When a vampire ceases to be young fantasy ceases. See ya.
File under: teenage vampires
Tracklist:
* * * * 1/2 Supermassive Black Hole * * * * Decode * * * * Full Moon * * * Leave Out All The Rest * * 1/2 Spotlight * * * 1/2 Go All The Way (Down to the Twilight) * * * Tremble for my Beloved * * 1/2 I Caught Myself * * * 1/2 Eyes on Fire * * * * Never Think * * * * Flightless Bird, American Mouth * * * 1/2 Bella's Lullaby
The Twilight Original Motion Picture Soundtrack features 12 songs from the Twilight movie! The soundtrack includes two brand new songs from Paramore w...More at Buy.com
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