Soundtrack Battle Wednesday
Here's the news folks: I'm going on a little vacay until Tuesday. Hooray for me. Boo for the blog. I may make a post or two while I'm away, but, who are we kidding, probably not. Which means, for the second week in a row, there will be no 10 CD Thursday. (Oh, and also, I have to manually approve all comments, so for the three of you that actually do comment regularly, anything you say won't show up until I get back.) I don't know if anyone else enjoys these, but I like doing them — it's a good challenge, and gets me to listen to the slush pile. Also, it's a guaranteed post every Thursday.
But and so, because I got two different soundtracks in the mail today, I present the new (probably one-off) feature Soundtrack Battle Wednesday!
First up:
"Kurt Cobain: About a Son: Music From the Motion Picture"
This is a selection of the best of the music that influenced the Nirvana frontman, interpolated with snippets of audio interviews with Kurt himself. Which isn't as creepy as you think. Enough time has passed since his premature death that the samples are almost historical artifacts. And he has some really interesting things to say, about fame, about the band, about the music he likes.
Now the music. This shit should be taught in schools. David Bowie, Arlo Guthrie, Bad Brains, Iggy Pop. Lead Belly, Melvins... and Benjamin Gibbard? Well, OK, the Death Cab frontman is covering a Beat Happening song. We'll let it slide. The CD give a perfect snapshot of the bands Cobain studied, loved and learned from. As Michael Azerrad — the author of "Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana," on which the film is based — writes in the liner notes, "It's like a mixtape you'd give to a friend or lover to share ideas, not just about music but about your whole point of view."
The dark horse contender after the jump.