New Soundtrack: Cloud Atlas

As I type these words, I haven't seen Cloud Atlas yet. But I've been listening to the music for almost two weeks now. Along with the extraordinary visuals in the extended trailer online, I was taken with the music from the start. A little research told me most of the trailer's music wasn't from the film -- but one of the main themes was, and that was enough to whet my appetite for more. •• The movie is directed by three directors, Larry and Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer. And the score is composed by three composers, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil, and Tom Tykwer. I've been a fan of the composer Tykwer as long as I've been a fan of the director. His work on Perfume and The International were fluid, melodic, and unforgettable. I knew Cloud Atlas would be no different -- especially because music plays such an important role in the narrative. •• The opening notes of the soundtrack are the opening notes of that trailer -- and for anyone who's into film music, the melody's plaintive, wistful longing is magnetic. The melody is heard throughout the score is one way or another, layered with different orchestration and variation as the film's many stories unfold. Sometimes adventurous, sometimes mysterious, sometimes symphonic, this main theme is a versatile beauty. Love theme, march, action set-piece. •• The score culminates in the full "Cloud Atlas Sextet for Orchestra," a 5-minute track that reaches for the classical stars and sometimes, at some moments, achieves it. It sounds like a very old piece of music, which is sort of the point. I kept wishing for more: more development, more variation. (Its brevity is my only beef, really.) I think I could listen to a half hour of it, in awe of unexpected arpeggios and turns of musical phrase. But as it is, there's just the 5 minutes and they'll have to do until (unless) someone sees fit to expand on it. •• For now, what we have is a film score that seems to bring to the film an emotional layer that can only be carried and realized by music. It is the characters' souls and inner longings. Cloud Atlas promises to be an epic film -- and its music more than fulfills that promise.

New Music: Jason Gould

Jason Gould, whose new EP is just out, is Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould's son. ••• Now that I've said that, I'm betting you're thinking: Oh God, nepotism strikes again. But you're wrong. Because Jason hasn't gone to a label to release this collection of five songs; he's done it himself, independently, expressly not banking on anyone's name but his own. ••• But that's not the cool part. The cool part is how damn fantastic Jason's voice is. ••• A few weeks ago I heard a preview of the songs on YouTube, and I was speechless. At the age of 45, after acting here and there and making a short film on his own, Jason has, in his own words, found his voice. And what a voice it is. He is an extraordinary singer -- but more than a singer, he's a voice. He gives his songs a point of view. Yes, his tone is beautiful, his phrasing, his way with a note. God knows his pipes have a pedigree, but it's not enough to have the pipes: it's about knowing what to do with them. And he knows what to do. ••• The Internet buzz is that he sounds a little like George Michael. Well, maybe the George Michael who sang "Jesus to a Child" many years ago. But really, George Michael wishes he could do with a song what Jason Gould does. ••• "Morning Prayer" is the EP's first song. Beyond the fact that this is a gorgeous piece of music, what strikes me is that Jason seems to have not one shred of self-consciousness as he sings. It doesn't feel like a performance. Rather, it feels as if he’s just woken up on one of those bright, rare days, and these are the thoughts going through his mind. It's as if he's thinking this, not singing it. There’s gratitude, wonder, and anticipation, all at once. ••• The other four songs on the EP are covers, but you'd never know it, what with all the heart Jason brings to them. On "This Masquerade," he sings simply, accompanied at first by just a guitar. You can almost picture him at a campfire with friends -- and everyone's wondering why no one has signed this guy. His singing here is almost matter-of-fact. He's got his eyes closed, and he's lost in the song, discovering its layers. ••• "Hello" is more dramatic, with Jason singing to a long lost love. There's a yearning here, a reaching, that really moved me. ••• The great classic "How Deep is the Ocean" is the most straightforward song on the EP. It's Jason and piano. There's more to this than meets the eye, though, for he brings to these poetic lyrics a certain gravitas, a knowledge that all this love carries with it a very real pain. ••• Finally, there's "Nature Boy," which has been recorded by just about every major singer out there (but no, not Streisand). To this Jason brings something new. The easy interpretation is that this song is about a boy, "a very strange, enchanted boy." But Jason's version brings it new meaning. My takeaway: This is Jason singing into a mirror, as if the boy is him. It's very special. ••• I urge you to order Jason's EP. It's the start of something, something rare. Listen to his voice. Don't dismiss him because of who he is. If you do that, you'll miss the emergence of a remarkable talent. If there's one thing Jason has in common with his extraordinary mother, he understands that a song can be a little 3-minute play, and the singer the lone actor. Songs can be stories, and Jason understands this as well as his mother always did. ••• I started this by telling you Jason is Barbra Streisand's son. One day, I predict, people will say, "I love Barbra Streisand's new CD. And you know what? She's Jason Gould's mom."

New Soundtrack: The Words

Marcelo Zarvos is one those Hollywood composers who isn't everywhere just yet. In the last few years, he's produced winning scores for The Good Shepherd, The Door in the Floor, and Hollywoodland. Now he's done some terrific work on The Words, composing a score that helps to fill the movie with tension and pathos just when it needs it most. The movie itself is only so-so, and often the score is what keeps it from falling apart altogether. What impresses me most is that this could have been a score that was all about artifice. That is, Zarvos could have fallen on to synthesizers and non-acoustical instrumentation, all with the justification that the movie itself about artifice. But instead, he uses the orchestra to paint a broad schematic that's mysterious, hopeful, romantic, and downright lovely. If I had more time, or if it were more obvious, it'd be interesting to write about his way of nesting themes within themes, for the movie is about that, too, things help inside other things, like Russian dolls. But I didn't pick up any of that. There are times when Zarvos's score is thematic and lush, and moments when it sounds a lot like Philip Glass or the sometimes frenetic side of Alexandre Desplat or the Nico Muhly. That is, lots of the same notes or motifs, urgently repeated. Not my favorite kind of music, I admit, but here Zarvos juxtaposes it with slower, thoughtful material, creating a wonderful contrast. See The Words at your own risk. But by all means, listen to it.

New CD: Jekyll & Hyde

I've been a fan of Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Briccuse's Jekyll & Hyde for a very, very long time. I discovered it when a concept "highlights" CD was released in 1990, with Colm Wilkinson as Jekyll and an unknown Linda Eder as Lucy, the doomed prostitute. It was a magical recording. Wilkinson was famous for recently playing Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, and Eder had been a contestant on "Star Search." But it was the music that was remarkable, the otherworldly melodies, the emotions as high-pitched as the notes they floated on. Then, in 1994, there was another concept CD, this time with two discs. Once again Eder was Lucy, but now there was another Jekyll, Anthony Warlow. This set featured even more music, a more fully realized telling of the tale. It been retooled a bit, and it worked even better than the original highlights CD. Anyone who had doubts about a musical of this story were assured. It was one powerful recording. Then came Broadway in 1997, and things changed. Eder played her role on the stage, and Robert Cuccioli's take on Jekyll was rather lightweight. He sang it well enough, but the acting was a bit thin. And the direction was horrible. The unfortunate problem was that the second recording had been so lush, the Broadway production seemed like an imitation, and not a good one. It ran for a good while, but no one I know thought it delivered on the musical's promise. Since then, there have been other productions and other recordings. David Hasselhoff played Jekyll in Europe. There was a touring company, if memory serves. And now, in preparation for a new Broadway production starring "American Idol" veteran Constanine Maroulis and Deborah Cox, yet another concept CD. And the result? Unfortunately, the whole thing is getting worse. Exponentially. Every time the musical gets a new life, it gets further and further away from what makes it so great. The new recording offers yet another reorganization of the songs, but it isn't a better version. And this time around, the voices themselves are problematic. Maroulis isn't up to the task of Jekyll. He might look right, but really he doesn't. The thing is, casting Jekyll and Hyde is like casting Bruce Wayne and Batman. You have to cast the guy, not the alter-ego. What I mean is, anyone can be Hyde with the right makeup and the right menace, but it takes more than a voice to play Jekyll. It takes acting. And this time around, Lucy is all but destroyed. Cox just about kills the part, but not in a good way. Instead of performing the songs in character, especially her signature anthem, "Someone Like You," she sings it as though she's on "American Idol," with totally unnecessary flourishes that make it sound like a contemporary ballad, not the character study that it is. And I won't even go into the whole heavy-metal orchestration that's present; doing so would be a waste of pixels, to be honest. I will say this: composer Frank Wildhorn should have left well enough alone. Jekyll & Hyde doesn't need more concept albums. It's had two or three two many at this point. What it needs is someone who understands the brilliance of the two-CD set from 1994. It needs someone who gets it -- not what it could be, but what what it already was.

New CD: Music from the Dark Knight Trilogy

I don't mean to sound jaded, but I'm starting to wonder why some music labels insist upon re-recording music that film score fans already own. Case in point, the new "Music from the Batman Trilogy" CD. Fifteen tracks of moody, dark, pulsating, sometimes thrilling, always bombastic music from the trilogy that began with Batman Begins, then went onto The Dark Knight, and recently concluded with The Dark Knight Rises. What I don't get is why anyone thinks we need (or want) this CD. I mean, the soundtracks are readily available, and there's even an expanded album of Dark Knight music. At any rate, this CD clocks in at 73 minutes of music to fight crime in Gotham by. It's got a pretty good selection of themes composed by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer. At moments it's thoughtful. At others, it's over the top. Presented in chronological order, these tracks tell the story of the movies musically, and it's a fairly satisfying program. I wish the music itself were more interesting, though. I've never been a fan of this kind of themeless, percussive scoring. I couldn't discern a theme that runs through the series; if anything its tone is set by heavy electronic orchestration, a sort of musical violence that propels the action relentlessly forward. It's as if the music is a newfangled Batmobile; nothing will stand in its way. As performed by London Music Works and the City of Prague Philaharmonic Orchestra, the whole affair comes off as an exercise in how to score something in a decidedly sinister style in which something always seems about to happen but never quite does. Here's to hoping this is all the Batman music we see for a while. It's plenty, and it may even be too much.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: a new recording

The only word for it is "inspired." Casting Megan Hilty in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is about as close as one can get to casting Marilyn Monroe. After all, Megan just finished season one of Smash, the TV series about the making of a Marilyn musical, and she was amazing. The cliffhanger ending notwithstanding, Megan delivered every week, whether she was singing or speaking. Anyway, in addition to playing Marilyn, now she's played one of Marilyn's iconic roles in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and the new cast recording is a wonderful bit of nostalgia. Jules Styne's music and Leo Robin's rhyme-happy lyrics are almost too much fun. With the spectacular Rachel York in the cast, as well, this can't be beat. The CD features singing and lots of dancing, even down to the tapping. It's one of the frothiest CDs I've heard in a long time, and it's clear with every number how much a labor of love this was to produce. Every actor is locked into the point, which is to tell a fun story in a fun, memorable way. Megan Hilty is a knock-out in a part that made Marilyn famous, and she brings the same breathy, almost over-pronounced style that was Marilyn's signature. This isn't a huge, chandelier-falling, housekeeper-flying musical. It's old style. Classic. Fun. That's part of its charm. Don't miss this recording -- it's a keeper.

Ramin Karimloo's New Solo CD

British theater star Ramin Karimloo is mesmerizing on a stage. In particular his turn as the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera is a show-stopping interpretation that brings to the role all the raw emotion and masculine swagger that original Phantom Michael Crawford didn't. You can see Karimloo's take on the role in the new Phantom 25th Anniversary DVD. It's a startling reinterpretation of the role, truly a star-making performance. So I was thrilled to see a new CD of solo performances. Thrilled...but cautious. Because, after all, how many theater stars have faltered when the time came to make their own CD? Unfortunately, all the presence Karimloo has on the stage is lost on this effort, "Human Heart." This is not to say that it's worthless. Not at all. There are some good performances, but nothing that'll light the world on fire. Most disappointingly, placed next to his work on stage, the work here just doesn't make it. It's like the difference between being and acting. On stage, ironically, he seems to be; on CD, he seems to be acting. And it should be the other way around, if at all. I wish I understood what happened. Wrong songs? Wrong producers? One great example is his solo take on "Till I Hear You Sing," from the Phantom sequel Love Never Dies. On the cast recording, his vocal soars, and he embodies the sorrow and passion expertly, as if it had been written for him. But here, singing the same song, at a moment when he could bring everything in his own soul to the performance, it falls flat. The same thing happens on "Music of the Night," Phantom's signature song. Not only is it overproduced, when stacked against the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of other solo recordings of the song, this one doesn't register in the least. Why include it here at all? Clearly, it was an attempt to make the song his now, since he's new Phantom. Yet the song seems old now, and while Karimloo might have wanted to make it vital and contemporary, it's anything but. While listening to this CD, and wanting so very much to like it, I kept thinking about Simon Cowell. When he was still a judge on American Idol, he used to make a real distinction between pop singers and Broadway singers. I never quite got it, believing a good singer could sing in both areas (witness Katharine McPhee, who's brilliant on her own CDs as well as on TV's Smash). For better or worse, I find Simon to be right, certainly as his thought pertains to Ramin Karimloo and this CD. The guy's brilliant on stage and in cast recordings. But his own CD withers in comparison.

Ramone on Ramone

The year before he died of prostrate cancer in 2004, Johnny Ramone appeared in 16th place on the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time list in Rolling Stone and was listed on Time magazine’s 10 Greatest Electric-Guitar Players of all time. Eight years after his death, the autobiography of punk band The Ramones guitarist will be released. From The Wall Street Journal:

Commando: The Autobiography of Johnny Ramone is set for release April 2 by Abrams Image. In an interview Tuesday, his widow, Linda, described the book as "kind of his last word that he knew would be out."

"It is a really powerful book because his whole life has gone before him and he knows it's going to come to an end, and he really needs to tell everybody what he's feeling inside, so that's what makes it so amazing," she added later. "That is the biggest, most powerful thing, writing a book when you know you're dying."

So just what took so long in publishing Johnny Romone’s final words?

She said several factors were responsible for the delay in the book's release, including lawsuits involving the band after Ramone died and other projects she was undertaking for his fans.

"Between all those years of doing different things for his legacy, I always had the book. But there was never the right time for the book," she said.

Linda said her husband never stopped working on the book, even during chemotherapy treatments.

"He wasn't feeling well all the time, but that never stopped Johnny," she said. "Johnny was indestructible."

Stop SOPA and PIPA

The ramifications of the proposed Internet Blacklist Legislation are numerous and potentially dire. The Electronic Frontier Foundation boils it down most succinctly:

The Internet blacklist legislation -- known as PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House -- invites Internet security risks, threatens online speech, and hampers Internet innovation. Urge your members of Congress to reject this Internet blacklist campaign in both its forms!

As the EFF points out, though it’s possible to spin both bits of legislation in a positive way, but the deeper implications require serious study:

Big media and its allies in Congress are billing the Internet blacklist legislation as a new way to battle online infringement. But innovation and free speech advocates know that this initiative will do little to stop infringement online. What it will do is compromise Internet security, inhibit online expression, and slow growth in the technology sector.

Today Blue Coupe joins much of the Web in a day of study and reflection about what these twinned Bills might mean. So much has been written on the topic already, with more being added every minute, rather than add to the noise, we offer a series of links and a day of quiet.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation covers the matter here.

Wikipedia explains in some detail here.

The National Post does its usual great job of coverage here.

Ditto Strombo here.

CNN covers the basics here.

Elton John Book Will Fight AIDS

On Monday publisher Little, Brown announced that they will publish a book by pop icon Elton John later this year. Proceeds of the book, Love is the Cure: Ending the Global AIDS Epidemic, will go to the Elton John AIDS Foundation, an organization that has, over the last two decades, raised almost a quarter of a billion dollars towards fighting the disease.

The Little, Brown announcement said that the book will be “the very personal story of Sir Elton’s life during the AIDS epidemic, including his agony at seeing friend after friend perish needlessly. Through his stories of close encounters with people like Ryan White, Freddie Mercury, and many others, he will convey the personal toll AIDS has taken on his life -- and his infinite determination to stop its spread.”

In the release, Sir Elton added that the disease “must be cured not by a miraculous vaccine, but by changing hearts and minds, and through a collective effort to break down social barriers and to build bridges of compassion. Why are we not doing more? This is a question I have thought deeply about, and wish to answer -- and to help change -- by writing this book.”

Love is the Cure will go on sale this coming July. The publication date is meant to coincide with the 2012 XIX International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC.