THE SONG OF THE MOCKINGJAY: Aside from two Taylor Swift songs (one of which is a collaboration with indiefolk heroes The Civil Wars, and which is
pretty darn radio-unfriendly) and a contribution from Miranda Lambert/Pistol Annies, it's hard to imagine a more indie-friendly soundtrack for a big blockbuster than
The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 And Beyond, which features tracks from Kid Cudi, Arcade Fire, the Decemberists, the Punch Brothers, and Neko Case. That track listing certainly suggests that they're not polishing all the rough edges of the book to make it into a film.
Soundtrack curation is an art that is in full bloom lately, and I still have very high hopes for this movie (what's better than a movie about figurative high school backstabbing? a movie about literal high school backstabbing, of course), but I would caution you against inferring movie quality from soundtrack quality. Didn't we just have a whole post about this? Aside from things like Superfly, which prove that you can make a transcendent sountrack to accompany a turkey of a movie, look at the Twilight soundtracks. The original recipe may have been up and down ("down" being code for "song by Robert Pattinson"), but the only thing embarrassing about New Moon is the title and the cover. Sorry about the italics, by the way. I accidentally hit a button that did this and I can't get unitalicized no matter what I do.
ReplyDeleteand now the italics go away.
ReplyDeleteI think that I agree with both of y'all. It would be a very bad sign if the soundtrack here was overly pop---as it would be a sign that the producers don't get the book---but it is not conclusive evidence that the movie will be high quality.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, new Neko Case! Woo-hoo!
Much as I despise the whole Twilight thing, those are some really solid soundtrack albu,s.
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