I rarely buy soundtracks…in fact, I think “Jurassic Park” might have been the last one (what can I say, I’m a John Williams fan). But…when I saw the astounding film American Beauty, I was captivated by the uniquely beautiful sound of its themes and their remarkable effect on the mood of the film. I had to have this soundtrack.
After months of waiting for it to come out on BMG (it never did), and then several more random searches at area stores, I finally found it in downtown Pasadena.
It’s rare that a CD, particularly a soundtrack, is as chilling, sweet, tender, complex and even spiritually soothing as this one. Wow. And wow s’more. (Currently, I’m listening to “Structure and Discipline.”)
I think I have found the perfect work-on-the-computer CD. Or, writing. Or making love. Or…just anything.
Oooh…“Spartanette” is playing now. Creepy, and yet nearly hypnotic. Damn, this is a great CD.
The only instrumental soundtrack I ever owned was from the Empire Strikes Back. It was great. They had these cool laser sounds. This was back in the days of record players.
Elvis, the soundtrack is the creation of Thomas Newman. There are no vocal tracks whatsoever on it.
There are several instrumental soloists, and reading the instruments they play will have me harassing DeathLlama with “What the hell are these things?” kind of questions (he teaches instrumental music, after all). Are yah out there, Llama?
Some stuff I’ve never heard of that appears here: tablas, kim-kim drums, ewi, arpeggiated violin, and saz. Stuff I’ve never heard of, but can kinda figure out by description (but still, what the heck?): mandola, lap steel guitar, processed bass flute, banjo ukulele, bass tin whistle, pedal steel guitar, detuned mandolin, and…I kid you not…bird calls.
Regardless of the obscurity of the instruments, this is a darn cool CD. I don’t know how all those sounds work together, but they do!
I believe that would be “Baba O’Reilly”(sp?). It was used in every single other commercial out at that time, as well. All of 'em. Even the pet food ones.
Check out the soundtrack to Twin Peaks. It’s all of those. And haunting, in a Pink Floyd sort of way. Mostly instrumentals, with two vocal tracks IIRC.
Since the soundtrack is apparently all instrumental, an actual song from the film (“American Beauty”) that is outstanding is “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” by Annie Lennox. Gorgeous. I want the soundtrack, myself…le sigh.
Um…yeah. I’ve seen a picture of a bass flute once. It’s just this really, really big flute (that’s bent at one end). The processed part just means they ran the recording through some effects (electronic processors that change the sound). AT least that’s my guess. Lap steel guitar can be seen in any self respecting country band. Kinda like a guitar (at least as far as the strings are concerned) that sits on yer lap. Instead of left hand fingers, you play with a steel slide. I think. And I believe pedal steel guitar is similar, though I really don’t know for sure. Detuned mandolin…well, that’s what we call a mandolin that’s been detuned. Those are probably all the ones you could figure out yourself, but really, I don’t know what all those other ones are. Arpeggiated violin? My best guess is a violin that’s been tuned to a chord. But again, I have no idea.
Yeah, we don’t use a whole lot of those instruments in the middle school. (But now I’m really curious)