Monday, February 26, 2007
Mon! Ta! Gue-gue-gue!
10 years ago the world was a very different place. It was still the 20th century, We didn't travel via monorail and silver had a less prominent role in our collective wardrobes. It was a time of hopes and ambition, a time of innocence, a time when Des'Ree, a woman who, lest we forget, would not like to meet a ghost, it is the thing she'd fear the most, she'd rather have a piece of toast, I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am, do the love theme for a major motion picture. It was, of course, Baz Lurhmann's reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet which had this dubious honour, and to celebrate it's ten year anniversary, they're reissuing the soundtrack with five bonus tracks and are doing their best to make up for that particular oversight by including a version of said track without Des'Ree mewling over the top of it. It is, much like any track which doesn't feature Des'ree, markedly improved.
Many of you may remember the release of this film, which made a star out of the genetically modified bulldog that is Leonardo de Caprio and a trivia quiz answer out of Claire Danes, but for those who are annoyingly too young to be able to remember it, not only do we hate you all, but to bring it up to date, Baz decided to retell the story of the warring Montague and Capulet families and the ultimately doomed young love between Romeo and Juliet - two people from entirely different worlds who should never have fallen for each other... it's a bit like the Chantelle and Preston story, really. Only without the suicides. Yet - via the means of gang warfare and a high octane visual styling. If anyone were to attempt to bring it to the screen nowadays then the story would mainly involve people from rival Myspace groups dissing each other on their comments page while Romeo and Juliet's ill-fated romance would largely be carried out via the use of smileys in MSN, but we digress.
The soundtrack itself managed to make stars from The Cardigans, with the not actually as annoying as you remember it Lovefool and Radiohead, with the actually as whiny as you remember it Talk Show Host, but don't let that put you off buying it as it also features Kym Mazelle, an ace cover of When Doves Cry by Quindon Tarver and the infamous and spawner of a million unfunny parodies, Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen), albeit in an '07 mix which appears to have no differences whatsoever from the original other than the fact the introduction references the class of 07 instead. It may be worth pondering for a second on the fact that somebody got paid for that.
And besides, there are worse things you can buy that feature Montagues and Capulets. I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor springs immediately to mind.
Many of you may remember the release of this film, which made a star out of the genetically modified bulldog that is Leonardo de Caprio and a trivia quiz answer out of Claire Danes, but for those who are annoyingly too young to be able to remember it, not only do we hate you all, but to bring it up to date, Baz decided to retell the story of the warring Montague and Capulet families and the ultimately doomed young love between Romeo and Juliet - two people from entirely different worlds who should never have fallen for each other... it's a bit like the Chantelle and Preston story, really. Only without the suicides. Yet - via the means of gang warfare and a high octane visual styling. If anyone were to attempt to bring it to the screen nowadays then the story would mainly involve people from rival Myspace groups dissing each other on their comments page while Romeo and Juliet's ill-fated romance would largely be carried out via the use of smileys in MSN, but we digress.
The soundtrack itself managed to make stars from The Cardigans, with the not actually as annoying as you remember it Lovefool and Radiohead, with the actually as whiny as you remember it Talk Show Host, but don't let that put you off buying it as it also features Kym Mazelle, an ace cover of When Doves Cry by Quindon Tarver and the infamous and spawner of a million unfunny parodies, Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen), albeit in an '07 mix which appears to have no differences whatsoever from the original other than the fact the introduction references the class of 07 instead. It may be worth pondering for a second on the fact that somebody got paid for that.
And besides, there are worse things you can buy that feature Montagues and Capulets. I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor springs immediately to mind.
Labels: music, Romeo and Juliet, soundtracks
