Twilight Soundtrack Review
Filed Under (Movies & TV, music) by Mike Wilton on 08-11-2008
Tagged Under : twilight, Twilight Soundtrack, twilight soundtrack review
As I mentioned back in October when I caught wind of the tracklist for the Twilight Soundtrack I was not going to run out to buy the disc on Tuesday when it was released. However, I have had the opportunity to listen to the soundtrack along with the 3 iTunes bonus tracks in their entirety a number of times and thought I’d take the opportunity to give a rather extensive review of the soundtrack to this much anticipated film.
UPDATE: Due to popular demand I have written a post that breaks down when each song is played during the film. If you are looking to find out when a certain song plays please read, Twilight Soundtrack Revisited: What Plays When. This is just my review of each song from the soundtrack.
The album starts out with the upbeat track Supermassive Black Hole from Brit rockers Muse. Die hard Twilighters will know that Muse is not new to the Twilight soundtrack circuit since the book’s author Stephenie Meyer featured at least one track from the band on every playlist she created for each of the books in the Twilight series. It’s my opinion that their inclusion on the movie soundtrack stems mainly from this concept, as the track really offers no lyrical backing to the plot-line and its falsetto ridden vocals leave me wondering where this track fits in to the movie.
The second track and the first of two songs written by Paramore specifically for the film is Decode. The song which has been quick to get radio airplay, and has had 6,509,331 plays on the bands Myspace page at the time of this writing takes a more moody tone and captures more of the essence of the books. The bands singer Hayley Williams is a fan of the books and explained last month on StephenieMeyer.com that, “I chose the title “Decode” because the song is about the building tension, awkwardness, anger and confusion between Bella and Edward. Bella’s is the only mind Edward can’t read and I feel like that’s a big part of the first book and one of the obstacles for them to overcome. It’s one added tension that makes the story even better.”
The third track which is composed of an electronic drum track, an acoustic guitar, and a number of various synthesized instruments has always seemed out of place to me when paired with any of the other tracks. I originally heard The Black Ghosts, Full Moon paired with Decode on twilightthesoundtrack.com weeks before the soundtrack was released. I wasn’t very fond of the song at first, but over time it has grown on me. Again as a stand alone song I think it works fine, but to me it sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison to the rest of the album.
Picking up where Muse’s Supermassive Black Hole left off, Mutemath’s “Twilight Remix” of their song Spotlight continues with the upbeat tempo that is felt through much of this album. On first listen I was not very fond of the song, but as I’ve listened to the album as a whole a few times I see where it fits into the scheme of things. The fast paced drum beats and repetitive guitar licks remind me of a modernized rendition of the songs you would hear in a chase scene in the old Scooby-Doo cartoons.
Another band that is no stranger to the Twilight music circuit is Linkin Park. A band that was again used quite frequently in the playlists developed by the books author, they provide the angst ridden track Leave Out All The Rest. Again other than setting a mood the song doesn’t capture any of the plotline lyrically leading me again to believe that the band only made it onto the soundtrack because of their close ties to Stephenie Meyers’ playlists and their mention as a band Bella listens to.
Again we are transitioned from an angst ridden rock track to a more upbeat song. Former Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrel provides the dancy track Go All The Way (Into the Twilight). The song which slowly builds on a distant dance beat and chorus reminds me of my days of going to dance clubs in Hollywood. Again this song shows the range of music that was used on this soundtrack and it makes me wonder where exactly an upbeat track like this fits into the scheme of an angst ridden gothic teen vampire romance. Lyrically Farrell hits a little closer to home with the opening line, ‘’The first time I saw you, I had the fever.” Clearly an understated representation of Edwards thirst for Bella, but probably closer to fitting the storyline than much of this soundtrack is capable of.
The only track from the original playlist developed by Stephenie Meyer to make it onto the soundtrack is Collective Soul’s, Tremble For My Beloved. The modern rock veterans who have a number of big screen soundtracks under their belt including Scream 2 and Varsity Blues offer yet another upbeat track to the album. A solid contribution to the mood of the film with crunchy guitar and the repeated verse, “To a world where madness craves, to a world where hopes enslaved, Oh, I’ll tremble for my love always.” What’s most interesting to me about this track is that the song is nearly 9 years old and it still made its way onto the album. Originally released on the bands third album Dosage, it seems to me to be a bold move for the studio to include a band that hasn’t seen much mainstream radio play since their 1995 hit “The World I Know”.
The second contribution to the Twilight soundtrack from Paramore is I Caught Myself. The song which falls more along the lines of the pop rock style the band is known for offers a crisp guitar progression while singer Hayley Williams paints a picture of the internal struggle felt by the main characters with lines like, “Don’t know what I want, but I know its not you. Keep pushing and pulling me down when I know in my heart its not you.”
The first track to really capture the darkness of the Twilight story in my opinion is Blue Foundation’s, Eyes on Fire. With crunchy guitar drowned in reverb, angelic vocals, and an eerie organ melody the song brings a better sense of the true dark essence of the Twilight story. Lyrically the song aids in the story of James and his hunt for Bella with the lyrics, “I’m taking it slow, feeding my flame, shuffling the cards of your game. And just in time, in the right place, suddenly I will play my ace.”
The album wraps up on a more solemn note with two acoustic tracks and a piano piece from the films score composer Carter Burwell. The first of the two acoustic tracks is performed by Edward himself, Rob Pattinson. Pattinson, whose musical interest in the film started when he composed his own version of Bella’s Lullaby during filming offers a very folksy track titled Never Think that I can easily picture playing near the end of the film. Unfortunately the very bluesy vocals on this track make Pattinson hard to understand so the value of the lyrical content is beyond me.
The second acoustic track is performed by Iron & Wine and I can imagine that it is the song that plays at the end of the film when Edward and Bella dance. It’s got the perfect tempo for such a scene and I can picture the song playing in the background as the characters seemingly float on the dance floor, we’ll see if I’m right come November 21st.
The final track by Carter Burwell titled Bella’s Lullaby is the composer’s adaptation of the song in which Edward wrote for Bella in both the book and the film. Unfortunately I feel the piece falls short of my expectations, mostly because I feel the background instruments play too big of a role. When I heard Bella’s Lullaby in my head while reading the Twilight books I always pictured something that could stand alone on the piano, much like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. This piece relies too heavily on the orchestral elements in my opinion. Furthermore Edward often hums his lullaby to Bella in the books; this piece does not offer itself as something that would be easy to hum.
The 3 bonus tracks which are currently available on iTunes only offer one really impressive addition to the soundtrack. The first two, La Triviata and Clair de Lune are simply classical pieces that play in the background that are mentioned in the book. The piece of interest here is another track by Rob Pattinson. Let Me Sign is again a very folksy acoustic piece. The piece is very slow to start and it builds off of almost complete silence with the addition of some very distant distorted guitars and strings. While the mood of this one doesn’t seem to hold as true to the previous piece by Pattinson it’s definitely something that will excite die hard Twilight and Pattinson fans alike. If the song IS featured in the film I would imagine it would be one of those pieces that is introduced somewhere late in the credits.
The one track I wanted to review that I haven’t had the chance to get yet is the Fandango exclusive track that I got for ordering my tickets to the Twilight movie ahead of time. It is a remix of Bella’s Lullaby and as soon as I have it downloaded from iTunes I will do a review. Considering I am not very fond of the current version of the lullaby I doubt a “remixed” upgrade will do it any favors.
