cdm72's Full Review: Daredevil by Original Soundtrack
One of my favorite movie soundtracks has always been the one for A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER. I loved the series growing up, and this one came out at a time when I was just starting to buy my own music. I listened to this thing constantly. It was full of bands I’d never heard of, like Go West, Jimmy Davis & Junction, Sea Hags, Love/Hate, The Angels from Angel City, and would never hear of again (until Go West scored a hit with their PRETTY WOMAN tune, “The King of Wishful Thinking”). This soundtrack was a real eye-opener for me in terms of what great music is being produced by so many bands you’ll never hear on the radio and it was probably from that moment on that I’ve most often looked for those soundtracks populated by artists unknown to me. So I was pretty intrigued by the soundtrack for the 2003 movie DAREDEVIL.
I noticed a few names, like Drowning Pool, Evanescence, and Moby, but a good chunk of the 20 songs here were from bands I wasn’t familiar with, like Chevelle, Palo Alto, Revis, Boysetsfire, and Autopilot Off. Well, I guess every rule has to have that exception that proves it.
I am not impressed with the DAREDEVIL soundtrack.
You know what the biggest problem is? It’s unremarkable. It’s bland. It’s just there.
To start with, other than Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life” and “My Immortal”, plus Moby’s “Evening Rain” and Graeme Revell’s “Daredevil Theme”, any of these songs could be the song before it, or after it. The first four songs, Fuel’s “Won’t Back Down”, The Calling’s “For You”, Saliva’s “Bleed For Me”, and Seether’s “Hang On”, could all have been written and performed by the same band, that’s how mundane they are. I honestly have to check the track number sometimes to figure out what I’m listening to because you sure can’t tell them apart by the distinctive vocals. And those are from bands I had heard of before. I’ve been listening to this thing constantly for the past week, sometimes 3 or 4 times while at work, and even now I couldn’t bring to mind Revis’s “Caught in the Rain” (hell, I didn’t even know that’s what it was called!) or Boysetsfire’s “High Wire Escape Artist” (again, I had no idea that was the title--and I work with the case on my desk so I’ll know what’s playing and what’s next).
I don’t know if the lack of personality here is due to the album being produced by Wind-up Records, the same label that, at the time, represented several of the artists featured (Evanescence, Seether, Boysetsfire, Drowning Pool and Finger Eleven to name a few), or if it’s just a lack of vision and originality on the part of the filmmakers who chose such unremarkable music for their movie. Whatever the problem, this is a soundtrack best heard while watching the movie. And since I seem to be one of the few people who enjoyed the movie, even that probably won’t get much play around these parts.
Several of the songs, I’ve noticed, have the shared theme of hell and devils, so I guess that’s supposed to excuse how tepid they are and automatically qualify them for a movie soundtrack called DAREDEVIL. And it’s not just here on this soundtrack specifically, either; this is a trend I’ve noticed on a lot of soundtracks from recent years, the sheer BLAH-ness of them. Other than those 4 mentioned earlier, there are no stand-out tracks here, and I don’t believe the huge success of those Evanescence songs had ANYTHING to do with their inclusion here. Hell, one of the ones I find myself humming to myself most often is Hoopeston’s “Right Before Your Eyes” and I friggin’ loathe Hoobastank, so you know the rest of the songs gotta be crap.
I tried to give it a chance. When I first got the soundtrack, I gave it a few listens, then put it away and moved on. In preparation for this review, though, I tried to sink myself into it, listening almost exclusively to this one CD, hoping to find that ray of light that made me take note and be able to report back with SOMETHING favorable. But it’s been a week and it’s been dozens, literally, of times I’ve been through this thing now, and still I can’t even recall half the songs. DAREDEVIL is the definition of what a soundtrack should not sound like if you expect folks to dig it. A soundtrack should bring back memories of the movie, scenes you remember by the awesome music played during them (at the very least, it should be a great standalone product), but just from listening to this without the benefit of the movie too, there’s not a song on here who’s placement I could pinpoint. For all the good DAREDEVIL does it’s just a Wind-up Records primer with a few other bands they caught playing a gig in some bar last Thursday to fill it out. As a rock album, it’s boring. As a movie soundtrack, it’s pointless. I’ll stick with my Freddy Kruger, thank you.
The songs:
“Won’t Back Down” - Fuel
“For You” - The Calling
“Bleed for Me” - Saliva
“Hang On” - Seether
“Learn the Hard Way” - Nickleback
“The Man Without Fear” - Drowning Pool, featuring Rob Zombie
“Right Now” - Nappy Roots, featuring Marcos Curiel
“Evening Rain” - Moby
“Bring Me to Life” - Evanescence
“Until You’re Reformed” - Chevelle
“Right Before Yours Eyes” - Hoobastank
“Fade Out/In” - Palo Alto
“Caught in the Rain” - Revis
“High Wire Escape Artist” - Boysetsfire
“Raise Your Rifles” - Autopilot Off
“Daredevil Theme (Blind Justice Remix) - Graeme Revell and Mike Einziger
“My Immortal” - Evanescence
“Sad Exchange” - Finger Eleven
“Simple Lies” - Endo
“Let Go” - 12 Stones
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