Twilight: New Moon soundtrack
There was one scene in Twilight: New Moon where Bella is running away from the bad vampires (I think) and I remember thinking in the movie, a little guilty, “This song is pretty sweet..” Ever since then I’ve been meaning to check out the soundtrack and I finally did the other night. I can’t say that it’s solid all the way through, but there are some definite standouts and daring choices on a soundtrack that could definitely have just gotten some My Chemical Romance tracks and been done with it. You can listen to the soundtrack via youtube playlist here – so load it up and let’s get started.
The soundtrack gets started with Death Cab for Cutie’s “Meet Me on the Equinox.” This is about as close as the CD comes to MCR territory. I’m pretty divorced from what’s popular among 14-18 year old kids, but I’m pretty sure Death Cab for Cutie get significant radio play. Anyway Transatlanticism is for me a blip on the otherwise downward trajectory of Death Cab so I can’t say this really lit me up but it’s okay.
Next up is “Friends” by Band of Skulls. At first I was thinking of The Sound of Urchin’s “Scary Skull Eyes”:
but in any case this one didn’t really grab me either…not off to a great start!!
Then the album starts to hit its stride with Thom Yorke’s “Hearing Damage.” This is the aformentioned “this song is pretty good” song. Kind of embarrassing that it’s by Thom Yorke who I’ve slagged pretty relentlessly in the past. But on this song I really dig the driving bassy synth and the way he delivers “you say you’re getting better but you don’t feel any better” line.
After that is Lykke Li’s “Possibility” which is another standout even if it does have a kind of twee folk-bjork thing going on. This is the song that really got me thinking about the power of the Twilight soundtrack, which I’ll detail a little later.
“A White Demon Love Song” by The Killers – really all you need to know. Pretty standard Killers track. The album kind of hits a lull around here with Anya Marina’s “Satellite Heart” and Muse’s “I Belong To You” (which sounds like it rips off a Maroon 5 riff in the opening – pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel there).
A brief uptick after that with the surprisingly good “Roslyn” by Bon Iver and St. Vincent (kind of a haunting folk thing that I would have put on endless repeat if I’d heard it in high school) and “Done All Wrong” by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club that I wasn’t really into at first (thought it was a Papa M “Over Jordan” ripoff) but it pays off on repeated listens.
Then back to a lull. “Monsters” by Hurricane Bells has this really strangely dated sound, really fuzzed out and sludgy production. Not bad but didn’t really leave a mark on me. “The Violet Hour” by Sea Wolf sounds so much like a Bright Eyes song that I was astonished when it wasn’t a Conor Oberst project (though produced by the same guy who does Bright Eyes).
“Shooting the Moon” by OK Go. Never really got this band. You know how some songs kind of build up towards the end – getting kind of fast and insistent with the vocal delivery or something. I know I’m not explaining this well, but this entire song sounds like a protracted end of another song. They try and save it by having a rock out portion at the end but it seems forced.
Not a huge Grizzly Bear fan but stunned to see Beach House vocalist Victoria Legrand singing here. She definitely makes this song worth something. Not as good as a full-on Beach House song but I like it. Like most of the other good songs on the album, kind of sitting in that rich, dark, slow indie territory.
“No Sound But The Wind” by the Editors briefly had me thinking if the criteria for being included on the album was that the singer had to have a kind of funny voice. He sounds like he’s trying to do a Tindersticks thing, but it’s a pretty good song.
The the album finishes on a kind of cliche but high note with a classical-styled piano piece called “New Moon (the Meadow)” by Alexandre Desplat.
—–
Okay, so the songs are pretty hit or miss, but the reason I think the album as a whole is worth talking about is that say what you will about the emptiness of the Twilight franchise, or the dubiousness of the gender politics and prudishness on display throughout the series – I think Twilight is a definite stepping stone. A gateway piece of culture that can get girls (or anyone) into music, literature, movies, etc., that are beyond the mainstream.
When I was initially looking for the songs on the soundtrack on youtube, I didn’t go to a playlist initially, but was just searching for the individual track names. The Lykke Li song I was talking about I actually heard first as part of this video:
Watching someone just shoot a video of themselves stalking around in the woods is like going back to me at 15/16 when I would have thought this was the sweetest thing on earth. “Yeah walking around in the woods by myself vaguely sad and or pissed off. Yeahhh.” It really spoke to me like if New Moon can put people on a path to making videos of themselves in the woods then can it be all bad?
February 4th, 2010 at 2:39 am
Zach – I agree that in the best case something like “Twilight” can be a stepping stone to “bigger and better things” in terms of the arts and ideas – kind of like “High Fidelity” (the Nick Hornby book, not the movie) and “Trainspotting” (the movie, not the Irvine Welch book) were for me. While neither one of those is anywhere near my favorite book/movie nowadays, they played a really important role in getting me into contemporary fiction and indie film, as the case may be. So hopefully some of the teenage girls getting into the “Twilight” saga will move on to Charlotte Brontë or Mary Shelley or something.
I totally agree on “Transatlanticism” – aside from its cloying preciousness in parts, it’s a very solid album, particularly the song “Transatlanticism” itself. And your reaction to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club seems pretty understandable. They’re definitely on the more derivative side (of the Jesus and Mary Chain, namely), that if you’re into JAMC and maybe some blues-inflected guitar rock (like me), you’re pretty much obligated to at least like their songs a little bit. But as with junk food, the rush soon gives way to a feeling of emptiness!
By the way, looking forward to snarkily laughing at Placebo’s cover version of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” during Daybreakers tomorrow night…
February 4th, 2010 at 11:09 am
zach, first off let me say (actually, first off let me say great post) that there’s a serious dearth of shredding here. at least give me one song. some black label society or children of bodom. this should have been the last track
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYMupc564zE
but anyway, I confess to having a similar reaction to the new moon soundtrack and that thom yorke song was definitely very impactful in the movie. I’m kind of interested why you only checked out the new moon soundtrack now, so long after we watched the movie.
death cab, I hate em, it’s like somebody tapped like 20 lands and cast hatred on me thats how much I think they’re bad.
ok go, I can never like a band that had that stupid treadmill video
the uniformity of the soundtrack is kind of interesting, guess they were going for that whole indie folk vibe.
before my taste in music changed I liked one song by the editors, tindersticks is a good comparison but also ian curtis.
I think roslyn is the best overall.
but yeah, I don’t think the whole twilight franchise is such a bad thing. some of the fans take it to extremes maybe. but gotta respect meyer for actively encouraging fanfiction. I think the story tells it like it is in terms of delivering what it’s audience wants, and is a welcome antidote to both harry potter and rice.
February 4th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
man, these songs, ugh. haha. the thom yorke one is definitely by far the best. i think that was in the scene where the werewolves were chasing the evil red-haired vampire girl, i remember thinking the way it was shot plus the song made it the best part in the movie.
Twilight, for all its faults and its gender politics you mention and the unfortunate reality that Meyer probably gives a shitload of Twilight-made tithing money to the Mormon Church who in turn use it to promote whatever racism or homophobia they’re doing, i think is more important not as a stepping stone to “better” things, but because of the power it’s bestowing on its fanbase in the broader field of media. i can’t think of a time before now that girls and women have had so much power as a consumer, to the point where they’re able to drive what companies are producing and companies are trying to please them rather than the heterosexual white male that has been the core audience forever. whether Twilight is good or bad, it’s shown that girls and their dollars are a force in the marketplace and they’re not being ignored anymore or tossed the scraps of “chick flicks.”
i think it’s less important whether Twilight leads somebody to get into Charlotte Bronte or whatever other “good” writer or musician or whatever “beyond the mainstream”; it’s great if it does, fine, but that’s not changing anything out there. obviously i want these fans to like whatever they want to like, but i think in terms of the media landscape or whatever, that things would regress and be damaged if these fans left for underground/non-mainstream stuff. Twilight, and its imitators, IS the mainstream right now and i think it’s great, i hope it gives rise to new huge girl-driven moneymakers. i guess it’s possible for the fans to move on to “better” material like you guys are talking about and STILL be Twilight fans, though. and it would also be okay if some new property came along and took Twilight’s place, or better yet if Twilight co-existed with multiple other girl-driven media juggernauts.
anyway. zach, it’s too bad we never did any angsty forest movies when we were 16, i wish i’d known you were into that.
February 4th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
ross,
come on how you could you not know i was into that. we were ALL into that. blast some peter murphy soundtrack, and go out into the forest at night.
i’m not sure how much i agree with the statement that twilight is really changing the marketplace, though. i think companies have long understood the value of teen-girl fandom. just look at beatlemania and everyone trying to cash in with their own british invasion band. and all of the hannah montana/disney franchises that appeal to that crowd (maybe that’s skewed a little younger than twilight but not much). And it seems to me that the way the market has responded to Twilight is to produce things like the Vampire Diaries and lots of other knockoff shows that are basically “chick flicks” gussied up with a vampire or some other supernatural bs. In that sense Buffy, for all its varied faults, is probably the stronger entry in that department.
I understand what you’re saying about wanting girls to pull the powerful stuff into the mainstream, though, rather than leaving the mainstream to access the powerful stuff. I guess I hope that somehow the legions of girls making movies of themselves in the woods will somehow lead to the next wave of Twilight-esque media being more empowering and thought-provoking than Twilight was, and let that become the mainstream.
February 4th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
i don’t mean music, though, i’m just talking about fiction or genre fiction/movies or whatever. music’s always had its boy bands, that’s a separate field.
granted Twilight is still about romance (or “romance,” heh) but it has all these other fictional genre elements that were always thought by companies to be the realm of boys and that sort of thing, and there have been attempts at that over the years (Buffy like you said) but i still feel like teen girls were mostly ignored by big movie studios and stuck in a niche market, fed stuff like Hannah Montana or “real life stories” sort of stuff. and yeah, maybe Twilight is only changing things by making people produce imitations and knock-offs, but that’s everything that goes big, and when was the last time something that caused that was a thing driven by girls and young women (and their moms, heh)? maybe Harry Potter but i think that’s a different animal, it’s way more (or at least marketed as) gender neutral. even if Twilight blows and the imitations it gives rise to blow, i think the change has already been done and that’s good enough. maybe people will push things and the next explosion will be something more thought-provoking or whatever and less about a cipher character and her love interests with killer abs. but who am i to say that a story about hot guys with hot hair shouldn’t be enough?
and i’m not saying that this is all some ideal scenario, that everything is perfect now, i’m not saying it wouldn’t be NICE if the mainstream became something thought-provoking or empowering or more narratively substantial or whatever, but it’s not, i’m just talking about the positive elements of what’s going on. not trying to say the negative ones don’t exist. although when has the majority of mainstream stuff ever been any of those good things even when it’s been about, made by, and marketed to guys? it’s always been mostly garbage, how is Twilight any different in that respect? XD
February 4th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
oh yeah, i was thinking more, and i guess it’s possible that all the Twilight fans or whatever new generation of girl fans suddenly move onto Charlotte Bronte or Mary Shelley, to use Rob’s examples, and THAT becomes the mainstream, but i don’t know, doesn’t that just seem really unlikely? it’s not like male writers of that caliber or era have ever been the mainstream in the same way Twilight has, either. who’s another writer, or series, that’s been a huge phenomenon besides JK Rowling? hmm…
February 4th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
ross, there are so many, just imagine what you can buy in wegmans
February 4th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
eg tom clancy
February 4th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
My previous comment about “better” literature obvious had a strong value judgment attached to it, and I accept the level of academic snobbery that I injected into the statement.
But I think that in addition to being (probably) better-written than Twilight, novels like Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice are also “good” because of the message they convey – that women should try to be fully-realized individuals on their own terms, but that this carries consequences in a fundamentally sexist society. What I think is great about Brontë and Austen – and lots of late 18th/19th century fiction – is that these novels don’t duck the conflict between women-as-individuals/women-as-subordinates, a la “Twilight,” which seems to imply that if only you find some sort of supernatural male (vampire) to take care of you, you don’t have to develop your own personality.
Even if writers like Leo Tolstoy or Henry James probably had some sexist inclinations, they were perceptive enough to realize that whatever you think about women’s rights, the idea that a women could be an autonomous individual in the way men take for granted is dangerous in terms of the continuity of a culture built on female subordination. Still true today, I think.
February 4th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
rob: yeah, i agree. i haven’t read the Twilight books but i’ve seen the two movies that’s what i’m going off of, but i’m sure as hell not going to stick up for the messages the property seems to want to put forth, heh. obviously the ideal scenario here would be something as huge and mainstream as Twilight but something that also really breaks down gender roles and has a better, more progressive message. not gonna say that wouldn’t be nice.
although on the other hand, who the hell am i to say what girls SHOULD be reading/watching? isn’t it up to them? while we’re agreeing here that fiction should be conveying that women should be autonomous and fully-realized on their own terms and make their own choices and all that, isn’t that what the Twilight fans are actually doing in real life? Twilight may be reductive, regressive and stupid, but the teen girls of America (not sure how popular it is in the rest of the world) have certainly stood up and told everyone what they want with not only their shrieks of glee and mopey fan youtube videos, but their dollars as well, haha. it just so happens that what they currently want isn’t to everyone else’s liking (stupid mormon church!).
February 4th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Ross – I see what you’re saying, yeah. I don’t think Twilight has a ton of really genuine genre elements – since a lot of the supernatural shit is just ways to make the guys supernaturally hot. But the movies at least have elements of horror and action, especially in the depiction of the villains and the fact that Bella has problems above and beyond Edward vs. Jacob. And it’s definitely cool that a “chick flick” can stack up in term of box office numbers with “guy movies” like Star Trek and Transformers. I guess I still hope that not only will companies treating the girl audience as a market lead to them treating the girl audience as individuals, but also that the particular combination of genre and romance that Twilight embodies will help get girls into what I’m into since obviously I think what I’m into is the best.
Mark – I forgot to respond but I definitely agree that there could have been a bone thrown to shredding in this soundtrack. maybe not children of bodom but at least some virtuosic classical guitar would not have been out of place.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:19 am
i think you guys are discounting the idea that some girls/women (i would argue most, but i guess that’s debatable) might actually want to be swept off their feet…they want the knight on the white horse (or the brooding vampire) to save them. there’s gotta be a reason these kinds of stories have maintained their popularity over centuries. unless, i guess, you believe that women only like these stories because that’s what they’ve been fed and told to believe their whole lives. this, in turn, is quite an indictment on the human condition–how can any of us truly be “fully realized individuals” when all it takes to change our minds is being told a story?
February 5th, 2010 at 11:57 am
dave: i’m totally not discounting that at all, that’s my whole point, that girls are obviously into this stuff, they’re choosing it of their own free will, so that’s a-okay and more power to ‘em. what they want has nothing to do with the rest of us, but that doesn’t mean that we still can’t argue about the politics of Twilight or whatever. i think there’s something to be said for societal conditioning like you’re saying, and obviously conditioning exists, but i think it’s too easy, especially for somebody who doesn’t care for the property in question, to discount people’s love of something by just saying “well, they don’t REALLY like it, they’re just being manipulated by marketing and hype and societal systems!” which is kind of a stupid thing to say. anyway, yeah, i agree with you.
i don’t think somebody is less of a person if their mind is changed by a story, though. otherwise if your mind is changed by ANYTHING and you’re less realized, then you’d still be a baby your whole life, or you’d never grow or develop or make choices because you wouldn’t be able to learn. a person influenced by peer pressure can be just as much “fully-realized” as a person who lives in a vacuum. i think rob’s wording of the concept is kind of confusing, and the more i think about it i’m not sure what “fully-realized” even means, haha.
zach: “…but also that the particular combination of genre and romance that Twilight embodies will help get girls into what I’m into since obviously I think what I’m into is the best.” millions of teenage girls all shrieking and crying over Hogg. *shudder* i’m not sure if i think what i like is the best. probably most of it is kind of crappy.
i don’t know, i don’t think Twilight’s use of supernatural stuff is any more window-dressing than most other genre stuff. yeah, it makes the guys supernaturally hot, but Jacob (mmm jacob) still attacks people as a werewolf and there’s still a supernatural baseball game and stuff, the vampire/werewolf elements still affect the story. apparently in a later book Bella becomes pregnant with a vampire baby that threatens to eat itself out of her body, haha. pretty good idea, definitely not just dressing. but yeah so much genre stuff is just dressing to tell a straightforward adventure story, i don’t know why it’s any different or worse when it’s dressing up a romance story. what are some uses of genuine genre elements, though? maybe i’m just not understanding what you mean. :\
February 5th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
i think i might be misunderstanding what’s going on here. so the point is it’s awesome that girls like what they like, but what they like sucks?
February 5th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
dave,
i think there’s a couple different theses being put forward here. first is ross’s contention (that i agree with) which is that regardless of the merits or flaws of twilight, it’s awesome that women as consumers are being accorded the power and attention in the marketplace that they are. the second thesis is that even though twilight sucks in its particulars, its moodiness and aura can be stepping stones to what i subjectively would consider more worthwhile pursuits.
February 5th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
ross,
no, you’re right. genre elements are often used as dressing to tell more or less straightforward stories. even one of delany’s most popular books, nova, is explicitly a grail story in sci-fi dressing. i guess when i think of a good use of genre, it’s a story that couldn’t be told any other way. like delany’s “trouble on triton” or “stars in my pocket like grains of sand” are basically romance novels, however shattered and fractured the romance or characters are, but the stories they tell and the themes they explore would be impossible in a different setting.
like would twilight be any different if edward was a spy or alien or something instead of a vampire? i guess there wouldn’t be any vampire baby (books sound better than the movies in that regard), but the theme of like superromance or whatever i think would be pretty fundamentally unchanged.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
dave: yeah, what zach said. i can’t not have an opinion about Twilight since i’ve experienced it, i have to have a reaction to the material, but i can separate that opinion from the other stuff i’m talking about and simultaneously appreciate that this stuff is loved by others and all that other stuff.
yeah, i agree with what you mean about “genuine” genre elements, sort of like what i try to do with the various games we do, like if we’re doing the Zombie Game i want to do stuff we can ONLY do in that setting. on the other hand i think dressing can sell me on something, too, like omg Edward is an alien??? sweeping alien romance??? sign me up! i totally find that more appealing than magical vampire romance even if the basic story is the same, heh.
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