My creativity is blank right now, so far that the closest thing to writing something of note that I can achieve is this blog post. It doesn't help that I have manflu, and a general aversion to the holiday period, so I'm not in the best of moods. Also, Rainbow Six Vegas is kicking my ass.
However, I do have one cause to celebrate, and I am currently listening to it. I speak of the soundtrack to BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, the best cartoon that has ever been produced that doesn't feature a smart-talking alcoholic robot, and it's beautiful. It's an achievement, especially in today's credit crunch-fuelled climate where decent film score releases seem to be getting rarer, that this has been produced at all. Although I suppose Batman is in the public eye, what with THE DARK KNIGHT getting rave reviews across the board and making an obscene amount of cash.
The release itself is by La-La-Land Records, and is limited to 3000 copies. A very limited amount of those (I think about two-fifty) are signed by Lolita Ritmanis and Michael McCustion, the two composers of whose work appears on the album are still alive (Shirley Walker RIP), and luckily I managed to snag a signed copy. I dig the way LLL does this, by sending a sealed copy of the CD itself, but with a duplicate booklet signed by the composers. It's cool, thoughtful, and means I can read the excellent liner notes without chancing tearing the booklet on the jewel case, which can happen if you're not too careful.
The music is incredible, and it's amazing that this was written for a Saturday morning cartoon show. Danny Elfman's theme from the 1989 BATMAN opened the show for most of its run, and that arrangement is presented here, and I think it works better than the film's equivalent cue. The theme also shows up occasionally in the score, but is usually superceded by Walker's own fantastic theme, which was also used for BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM - THE ANIMATED MOVIE. The scoring here is so unique, and while it ranges from really dark, film noir mood music ("Two-Face"), to madcap Looney Tunes-style carnival sounds ("Christmas With The Joker"), it always remains fresh and interesting. Also, Walker's theme is just amazing.
I never felt the composers really got Batman 100% in the films. The 60s show, that was just camp all the way through, Elfman and Goldenthal's music for the Keaton-era films was pretty great, but never felt that interesting to listen to (although I prefer Goldenthal's, theme aside). And Zimmer and Newton Howard's music for Nolan's films works a lot of the time, but could probably do with some better thematic development. And it certainly wouldn't hurt to give Batman a proper theme at some point. Nolan et al may be going for an ultra-realistic vision of Gotham City, but at the end of the day, it's still an operatic story with larger-than-life characters and overtones, and some actual themes wouldn't be that out of place.
(Wow, I managed to get through the whole post without referring to something as Bat-something. Incredible.)
BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES - ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK FROM THE WB TELEVISION SERIES
I think Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' must be one of the most covered songs ever. It's a great track, even if the arrangement is dead cheesy, and Cohen's subwoofer-murdering voice just makes it. However, the best version - universally acknowledged, this is - was Jeff Buckley's cover from Grace. Buckley took it to a different level, changed some of the verses and lyrics around, and transformed it to this work of perfect art, along the same lines as Hendrix did with Dylan's 'All Along The Watchtower', and to a lesser extent, Slayer did with 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida'. Rufus Wainwright's version - as heard in SHREK - is alright, but nothing compared to Buckley's.
Why am I talking about this? You see, in England there's this TV show called The X-Factor. Basically, a bunch of singing hopefuls go on there and audition, and if they get through to the final and win, they get a £1m record contract. A bit like American Idol for the yanks out there. In any case, it's terrible viewing (although occasionally watchable in a car-crash kind of way), the smarmy judges are horribly mean to most of the contestants, and in the process, thousands of great songs are murdered by people "interpreting" them. Oh, and the public votes for the winner, which is never a good thing.
The latest winner is someone called Alexandra Burke, who I suppose has a perfectly decent voice, even if she does just sound like a knock-off Whitney. But her winning song was a cover of 'Hallelujah', which has now winged its way to being the fastest download ever. And here comes my point: this is a fairly decent singer making money - and the access to make more music on a regular basis - through a soulless rendition of a great, great song. If you ask the average person on the street, they'll go 'Jeff who?' but if you mention the song, they'll no doubt go into hysterics about how great a singer Alexandra is, already up there with the greats like Westlife, Girls Aloud and S Club 7. Grr. This just makes me a tad angry. Why can't they fuck up bad songs? Why can't the world's fastest selling download be a shit cover of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'?