| FAME soundtrack - various artists |
| Written by Elle Hunt | ||
| Monday, 02 November 2009 13:58 | ||
Indeed, much of the album is tinged with R&B: ‘Big Things’ by Anjulie is Gwen Stefani (circa No Doubt) meets Ciara; ‘Street Hustlin’ sounds like M. I. A. gone wrong; and an over-reliance on snippets of competitive backtalk (“You shut up, man!” and “No, you shut up!”) seems lame, taken out of the context of the movie. I get the impression that these tracks were written to be complementary to a particular dance sequence in the movie, rather than to stand alone as tracks in themselves, and as a result, without the visuals to accompany them, they fall rather flat. Asher Book has quite a few songs on the soundtrack, performing piano-type ballads in the vein of a less funky Daniel Merriweather. Although Book’s track ‘Ordinary People’ is a bit of a snoozefest, its line; “This ain’t a movie, no, no fairytale conclusion, no” is a nice reminder to the audience that for many, the struggle for fame is a very real way of life. It’s appropriate also, that the majority of the pieces on the album are done by up-and-coming (such as Sam Sparro, whose track ‘Black & Gold’ appears here), or altogether unheard-of artists: it’s very in keeping with the spirit of the movie. With eight tracks between them contributed to the album, Book and Naughton are clearly the musical stars, and will doubtless do well in the wake of the movie. The revision of ‘I Put a Spell On You’ though, is terrible; with none of the sinister and sultry spirit of the original, while the Switch & Sinden remix of Santigold’s ‘You’ll Find a Way’ is uneasy listening, and not in the cool DJ Z-Trip kind of way. It seems that the 'Fame' soundtrack works best when accompanied by the moving pictures of the film, and when the kids are doing it for themselves, performing their own pieces, rather than remixing or covering other people’s songs. It just goes to show: be original, or otherwise we will never remember your names. |
