Marc Collin: Hollywood, Mon Amour
Marc Collin: Hollywood, Mon Amour
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Wednesday, 01, Oct 2008 05:46
The Perfect Kiss, out October 6th.
In a nutshell...
Retrospective femme-fuelled movie theme-fest.
What's it all about?
The album's MySpace page suggests that it has been put together in recognition of the backtracking currently taking place in the rock and pop music genres - that the music industry, having reached its 50th birthday, is looking back to its early days in order to find fresh inspiration.
To this end, the tracks selected for this collection represent iconic moments in the 1980s film portfolio - aficionados of theme collections might particularly recognise Arthur's Theme, while cinemagoers of all ages will find something they are already aware of, even if it's only Eye of the Tiger.
But the style in which they are presented aims to provide a departure from the arrangements used in the original movies and prove that the music and lyrics themselves are both timeless and flexible enough to be reinvigorated, in some cases more than 25 years after their release.
Who's it by?
Marc Collin is the common link between the tracks on Hollywood, Mon Amour, which themselves are performed by a range of female vocalists. His previous activities include Nouvelle Vague, an effort to take punk tunes from the early 80s and rework them - which ultimately led to an album of bossa nova-style punk covers.
Notable among the performers on Hollywood, Mon Amour is Juliette Lewis, herself a Hollywood actress, with an interpretation of This is Not America that stands up hardily to the competition from other vocalists on the album.
As an example...
"When you get caught between the moon and New York City/I know it's crazy, but it's true/If you get caught between the moon and New York City/The best that you can do/The best that you can do is fall in love." - Nadeah - Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
Let's face it, a themes album is pretty unlikely to bring home the gongs. But it's not without merit - the songs have been reworked and restyled, making a cohesive whole out of some fairly disparate source material.
What the others say
"Nouvelle Vague's producer had a genius idea - put together an album of old 80s classic theme songs and reinvent them with some cool singers. The album Hollywood, Mon Amour sounds like it turned out great." - Hard Candy
"If you enjoyed Nouvelle Vague's covers of new-wave classics rendered in a bossa nova style, you are going to love the shit out the album Hollywood, Mon Amour." - My Chemical Toilet
So is it any good?
I'm quite willing to admit, this is not the first album of movie themes to enter my CD collection. I've pretty much run the gamut from bargain-bin synthesised efforts to albums of original versions of James Bond themes. But there are relatively few albums that look to bring a specific era of themes up to date. Hollywood, Mon Amour does so quite successfully - although its coherence might be helped by the fact that most of the singers sound more or less the same.
The potential for putting these tunes on mix tapes is limited by the background effects which link from one to the next - and these are pretty lame at times, with one track fading out to the sound of the ocean, which hangs around until the next one begins - but as a whole it's an enjoyable listen and really quite calming, regardless of which movie the original track came from.
8/10
Bob Bardsley