Sunday, December 04, 2005
rappers need to get out of movies and start singing like actors
I'm in a film music class right now. I'm learning a ton of stuff, but the whole thing makes me wish I had more formal music training. It's fun, and while I might be having some trouble with all these "grades" and "assignments," at least I'm buying more soundtrack albums.
I just wrote a middling paper on Kill Bill - Tarnatino just steals all these great themes from horror pix, blaxploitation flicks, seventies western kicks and hong kong kung fu trixx. It's more than just record nerd showing off- using other movie music let's him shift moods and genres from scene to scene and even cut to cut. The final fight scene with the Crazy 88 goes through at least ten distinct emotional phases, and Tarantino "turns on a dime" and nails every transition without sacraficing narrative unity or pacing. He appropriates the stylistic gestures of snarky post-modernism but still tells a fairly timeless revenge story, making good points about feminism (!) along the way.
"Crazy" feels like film music, and it's more than just the swelling strings or vocal melodrama. Cee-Lo is one of the most under-rated voices in contemporary hip-hop. The man is a star, not a extra, and he's ready for his breakout role. His newish duet with Jazze Pha was definetly not it. DangerMouse is a fairly hot producer these days, and while I've enjoyed a lot of his work, I can't ever picture myself asking "Oh shit, is this DangerMouse?" Starting listing hip-hop's most famous producers (Timbaland, Dre, Lil Jon) and a particular phrases, styles, and instruments come to mind. DangerMouse isn't not bad, he's just not easily summarized. Film music's strength is a harmony of sorts- image and sound sing independent melodies that complement one another. Cee-Lo does his thing, and Danger gives him great underscoring. I'd like to develop these ideas a little more coherently, but shit, it's a blog.
Gnarles Barkley- Crazy ¶ 11:39 AM
I'm in a film music class right now. I'm learning a ton of stuff, but the whole thing makes me wish I had more formal music training. It's fun, and while I might be having some trouble with all these "grades" and "assignments," at least I'm buying more soundtrack albums.
I just wrote a middling paper on Kill Bill - Tarnatino just steals all these great themes from horror pix, blaxploitation flicks, seventies western kicks and hong kong kung fu trixx. It's more than just record nerd showing off- using other movie music let's him shift moods and genres from scene to scene and even cut to cut. The final fight scene with the Crazy 88 goes through at least ten distinct emotional phases, and Tarantino "turns on a dime" and nails every transition without sacraficing narrative unity or pacing. He appropriates the stylistic gestures of snarky post-modernism but still tells a fairly timeless revenge story, making good points about feminism (!) along the way.
"Crazy" feels like film music, and it's more than just the swelling strings or vocal melodrama. Cee-Lo is one of the most under-rated voices in contemporary hip-hop. The man is a star, not a extra, and he's ready for his breakout role. His newish duet with Jazze Pha was definetly not it. DangerMouse is a fairly hot producer these days, and while I've enjoyed a lot of his work, I can't ever picture myself asking "Oh shit, is this DangerMouse?" Starting listing hip-hop's most famous producers (Timbaland, Dre, Lil Jon) and a particular phrases, styles, and instruments come to mind. DangerMouse isn't not bad, he's just not easily summarized. Film music's strength is a harmony of sorts- image and sound sing independent melodies that complement one another. Cee-Lo does his thing, and Danger gives him great underscoring. I'd like to develop these ideas a little more coherently, but shit, it's a blog.
Gnarles Barkley- Crazy ¶ 11:39 AM
