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wombat1138Other than the folk music that I heard in preschool, my primary exposure to the genre has been via humor/satire/parody, such as Tom Lehrer and the Smothers Brothers. This makes it very difficult for me to take the originals seriously, esp. when I can recognize the bits that'd been picked up and riffed on.[*] Similarly sideways, my intro to A Mighty Wind was first by seeing the "Mitch and Mickey" performance at the Oscars a few years ago, and then checking out the soundtrack album last month; I didn't see the movie until a few days ago, when the DVD was actually on the shelf at the library.
[*: after listening to this soundtrack for a while, I started to hunt down some of the original folkies' albums at the library as well, esp. the ones cited as likely inspirations for the movie's songwriters-- who turn out to have been really good at what they were doing; there were definitely recognizable bits of melody and orchestration etc. And then there was the unexpected bonus of hearing "The MTA Song" on a Kingston Trio album, which had me dashing to the bookshelf to confirm that it had to be the inspiration for AJ Deutsch's story "A Subway Named Moebius", although that was written nearly ten years before the KT recording was made-- turns out the song had originated as a campaign jingle a year or two before Deutsch adapted it to SF.]
I'm not sure whether I'm embarrassed or not to say that I genuinely liked A Mighty Wind's soundtrack in its own right. Sure, all of the tracks are stylistic parodies (except for a bonus cover song), but they're performed with such technical verve and earnestness that the parodic element can slip right past in many cases if you don't pay attention to the lyrics, and sometimes not even then. As it turns out, the album contains a fair amount of music that wasn't in the movie, whether because only a short excerpt of the entire song made it in, or the song was only alluded to but never actually heard, or ended up being cut altogether. (The Folksmen's redundant-disaster song "Blood on the Tracks" is particularly delightful.) And then there's the aforementioned cover, which is the only selection that wasn't originally composed for the movie (songwriter credit: K. Richards and M. Jagger). The album could practically stand on its own merits without explicit reference to the film.
Possibly this pre-priming made me end up liking the film more than I would've on its own. Admittedly, the overall tone is rather fluffy and lightweight, but I found the character of Mitch Cohen oddly appealing (I gather that Eugene Levy's performance tends to polarize viewers' reactions: they either love it or hate it). The overcaffeinated theatricality of the New Main Street Singers had already been evident from their sound alone, but it was fun to see their added over-the-top visual flourishes. And the in-context performance(s) of "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" (the Oscar nominee) had a bittersweet power that isn't evident from the recording on its own. Also, iirc the last song of Mitch and Mickey's partnership, "One More Time", was one of the ones that were only mentioned but not heard within the movie; its lyrics have their own undercurrent indicating what was happening at the time, which was darkly funny on its own, but again, the song's context within the movie gives it a shadow of tragedy. (As I said, I liked Mitch and ended up caring about his bewildered lostness.)
I rewatched parts of the DVD with English subtitles and the Quebecois dub because I was curious how they'd handle the songs. The dub only covered the dialogue; the songs were left in their original versions (which required very close matching of the dub voices to the originals, for the sake of aural continuity).
Movie: three paws up; I may borrow it again sometime.
Soundtrack: 3.5 paws up (don't ask about the math there; shush); I listened to it a *lot* before returning it to the library, and am contemplating buying my own copy.
[*: after listening to this soundtrack for a while, I started to hunt down some of the original folkies' albums at the library as well, esp. the ones cited as likely inspirations for the movie's songwriters-- who turn out to have been really good at what they were doing; there were definitely recognizable bits of melody and orchestration etc. And then there was the unexpected bonus of hearing "The MTA Song" on a Kingston Trio album, which had me dashing to the bookshelf to confirm that it had to be the inspiration for AJ Deutsch's story "A Subway Named Moebius", although that was written nearly ten years before the KT recording was made-- turns out the song had originated as a campaign jingle a year or two before Deutsch adapted it to SF.]
I'm not sure whether I'm embarrassed or not to say that I genuinely liked A Mighty Wind's soundtrack in its own right. Sure, all of the tracks are stylistic parodies (except for a bonus cover song), but they're performed with such technical verve and earnestness that the parodic element can slip right past in many cases if you don't pay attention to the lyrics, and sometimes not even then. As it turns out, the album contains a fair amount of music that wasn't in the movie, whether because only a short excerpt of the entire song made it in, or the song was only alluded to but never actually heard, or ended up being cut altogether. (The Folksmen's redundant-disaster song "Blood on the Tracks" is particularly delightful.) And then there's the aforementioned cover, which is the only selection that wasn't originally composed for the movie (songwriter credit: K. Richards and M. Jagger). The album could practically stand on its own merits without explicit reference to the film.
Possibly this pre-priming made me end up liking the film more than I would've on its own. Admittedly, the overall tone is rather fluffy and lightweight, but I found the character of Mitch Cohen oddly appealing (I gather that Eugene Levy's performance tends to polarize viewers' reactions: they either love it or hate it). The overcaffeinated theatricality of the New Main Street Singers had already been evident from their sound alone, but it was fun to see their added over-the-top visual flourishes. And the in-context performance(s) of "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" (the Oscar nominee) had a bittersweet power that isn't evident from the recording on its own. Also, iirc the last song of Mitch and Mickey's partnership, "One More Time", was one of the ones that were only mentioned but not heard within the movie; its lyrics have their own undercurrent indicating what was happening at the time, which was darkly funny on its own, but again, the song's context within the movie gives it a shadow of tragedy. (As I said, I liked Mitch and ended up caring about his bewildered lostness.)
I rewatched parts of the DVD with English subtitles and the Quebecois dub because I was curious how they'd handle the songs. The dub only covered the dialogue; the songs were left in their original versions (which required very close matching of the dub voices to the originals, for the sake of aural continuity).
Movie: three paws up; I may borrow it again sometime.
Soundtrack: 3.5 paws up (don't ask about the math there; shush); I listened to it a *lot* before returning it to the library, and am contemplating buying my own copy.
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no subject
on 2007-09-25 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-25 04:12 pm (UTC)The Anne Boleyn song wasn't on this particular album, but I do think I've heard some form of it. Not sure where/when/who, though.
no subject
on 2007-09-26 01:53 am (UTC)Gosh, the last time I looked at MAD, Bill Gaines was probably still alive. And it was the late seventies, or whenever they did that Prince Violent comic. ("He hack those Huns... Those Huns he hack... Hack, Huns... Huns, hack... Ha!... Hoo-hah!..." You had to be there.)
no subject
on 2007-09-26 12:58 am (UTC)Might have to try this country's version of Netflix.
no subject
on 2007-09-27 03:52 am (UTC)