New Moon Soundtrack and the Return of Muse & Radiohead
Following the news of Chris Weitz confirming three of the bands that will be on the New Moon soundtrack in a Los Angeles Times article, I immediately started playing my personal version of the New Moon soundtrack and was reminded at how dark and conflicting the soundtrack was for me. A tale of loving someone, but just not enough, a tale of loss and confusion, and ultimately losing control just to cope with all of it. So when I heard that Weitz would be bringing back the bands Muse and Radiohead I was a little bit put off. Not because I dislike the bands, both are incredibly talented, but because I don’t feel their musical style fits the vibe I got from New Moon when I read it.
The third band announced for the soundtrack is Band of Skulls, an alternative rock band from London England who just released their latest album Fires! in the UK on July 13. The interesting thing about this band is their sound. I sampled some of the tracks from their latest album on iTunes and felt as though I was listening to classic rock tracks from my dad’s old vinyl collection. The album seems to mix both a classic rock and a more modern rock sound, with the modern rock tracks sounding much like track mates, Muse and Radiohead. My fear here is the Weitz is going to plague this soundtrack with a number of artists from the same niche or genre giving the film a very repetitive musical tone.
One of the things I loved most about Hardwicke’s Twilight soundtrack was the diversity in the music. Aside from the two tracks contributed by Paramore, no two songs really had the same tonality or style to them. It was a potpourri of really good music that once you saw with the movie fit really well.
As I mentioned before I was a skeptic of Hardwicke’s soundtrack and later fell in love with it. With the recent announcement of these three musical choices for New Moon I am again skeptical, but there is still time for this to change. I’m a stickler for my Twilight music because a huge premise of me reading the books revolved around putting music to them. Hopefully like Hardwicke, Weitz will put my skepticism to rest.
Posted in New Moon Music
July 21st, 2009 at 6:12 am
I think Radiohead’s original stuff fits the dark New Moon vibe…
i hope that they don’t have two of the same artist/band again
like i disliked having two Paramore songs on the soundtrack, even though i absolutely loved the second song (not a big fan of Decode though, coulda done without that)
July 21st, 2009 at 8:21 am
JacStar, I was actually a fan of both the Paramore songs, but I do agree that having the same band do multiple songs again would probably be a bit of an overkill. However, I would take a double take of a certain band over a soundtrack made up of a bunch of music that sounds the same. The three bands that have been announced so far are just too similar for my tastes.
Rumors are floating around that Death Cab For Cutie might actually be part of the soundtrack as well. Nothing official has been announced, but we’ll see.
July 24th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
oh that makes sense
so do you think that Death Cab, Muse and Radiohead all have the same sound?
maybe i need to give them all a good listen before i form a conclusive opinion, but i find radiohead in a class of it’s own
kinda like REM. i wonder if REM would do New Moon
July 24th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
@JacStar I don’t think Death Cab For Cutie fall into the same style as the other 3 mentioned, but I will say that Radiohead, Muse, and Band of Skulls definitely have their moments where they could sound very similar. Because I see similarities I feel if they choose songs that are similar in mood it might make the soundtrack a little stale.
It’s really hard to say at this point since 1) I don’t know the whole band lineup and 2) I don’t know what songs have been chosen. As I mentioned in the post, I was VERY skeptical of the Twilight Soundtrack when it was released, but later grew to love it.
I guarantee when the full tracklist is announced I’ll be sharing my thoughts on it. So stay tuned!