Inside Nokia Music

When I’m not in the gym pumping iron, tinkering with the transmission of my pick-up truck, hunting game or otherwise proving my immense, hairy-chested masculinity, there’s nothing I like more than watching the gloriously touching, moving and inspirational Twilight movies. Go Team Edward!

Well, maybe not. But I did recently sit through Eclipse, the latest instalment in the tale of a broody bloodsucker and his boring bird (I had to take my good lady wife to see it, you see. Honest.). Also featured this week: more neck-bitin’ antics with True Blood, cross-burning shenanigans with Against Me! and some good ol’ fashioned toil with Elizabeth Cook.

Various Artists – Eclipse Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Whatever I think of the film, there’s no arguing that the soundtrack album is pretty worthwhile. Despite the movie to which it’s tied, it’s a pretty mature collection of tracks, some of which are exclusive, so if you’re put off by the faces on the cover you’ll be missing out. Highlights include Sia’s ethereal ditty about troubled romance, My Love, and Beck and Bat For Lashes teaming up on the fuzzing, clinking, steam-building Let’s Get Lost. There are also exclusives from UNKLE, The Dead Weather, Vampire Weekend, Cee Lo Green, and Florence + The Machine, among others. In fact, about the only disappointment is Muse, who again drop an exclusive track to follow their contribution to the New Moon album.  Sadly this film’s outing – Neutron Star Collision – is a non-starter, sounding like the worst sort of Queen-esque excess.

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As a Muse fan from ‘Origin’ days, the bitter pill of their extreme commercial success has been a tough one to swallow. Already a huge departure in sound, Supermassive Black Hole expanded the fan base far beyond the devout… and even more so when it featured on the first Twilight soundtrack.

What would arise from this would create a divide… Twilight Muse fans, and the fans of old, scorned by the fear of association.

Having declared that they would not feature on the Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack after contributing a rendition of  I Belong To You minus Mon Cœur S’ouvre À Ta Voix to New Moon, the band made a swift U-Turn and opted to contribute the previously unreleased track. Penned by Matt Bellamy around the release of The Resistance following the end of a relationship, Matt said on Zane Lowe’s Radio 1 show that he figured it would be better to release it now when it was “still relevant”, instead of holding one to it for the next album.

So, as an unbiased listener not concerned with the fear of association, but of song quality alone… I have to say I’m unsure! It sounds like the counter to I Belong To You. Which would make sense as such since I believe it was written about the same lady in Bellamy’s life. Perhaps a few more revolutions around the particle accelerator and we’ll collide!

Muse albums and singles are available to download at Nokia Music Store. If you’ve got Comes With Music download them all for free!

A few years back, before I joined the auspices of Nokia, I spent some time in Sri Lanka for a job.

It was an interesting experience, the work colleagues were great and I integrated with some really interesting characters. On the first day, they thought I needed some comfort food and so ended up in a McDonald’s! Still, I was soon into the curries and local foods that were just fantastic, such as Lamprais, Vada, Kothu Roti, String Hoppers and Curd. If you are a seafood fanatic then its worth going to Sri Lanka for that, the lobsters and crab were fantastic!

I still remember some of the escapades that we got up to, including trying to all get into one of those 3 wheeler “tuk-tuks” with about 6 people. It was late, we had quaffed a lot of drinks, and so I’m surprised I didn’t lose my legs as there sticking outside the vehicle for most of the journey.

A tight squeeze with 6 in the back!

But back to music, which was a big thing there. Even the PA system in the office piped music from our resident wannabe DJ. One thing that I found was that a lot of the nightclubs had this fusion of Western and Asian tunes that was just great.

When I left, one of the colleagues gave me a compilation CD that had some of those tunes. Still have it somewhere although much has been transferred to my computer.

One of the hits at the time was Flute Fantasy by DJ Nasha. My main memory (or lack of!) with this song is being at a beach nightclub near Galle. We had just finished a seafood supper of lobster with French fries (delicious!) and had moved to this club from drinks. One wall of this place had been removed so that the dancefloor rolled into the sandy beach and out into the ocean. Very surreal experience especially after drinking what I suspect might have been locally brewed vodka or arrack. The hangover the next day was truly spectacular!

Other stuff on this compilation included Bollywood hits. One favourite I picked up was “Chaiya Chaiya” from the film Dil Se. It’s notable for the music video being filmed on a moving train.

The final song that I picked up was by the Bhangra Knights. The backing tune was used in a rather popular car advert here in the UK and involved someone taking an Elephant to a car, so that he could convert it into his dream vehicle.

Jerome recently posted about the new Tron: Legacy film and the music being done by Daft Punk. So it got me thinking, what other movies, games or anime of the “cyberpunk” genre had memorable music. Cyberpunk has perhaps evolved a lot from the dystopian novels of William Gibson (Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive and Count Zero) to a genre that has pervaded a lot of sci-fi movies and other media like games and animation.

As an aside, it’s interesting to note that as the internet developed (25 years ago the first dotcom domain was registered) Gibson’s next series of Novels (Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrows Parties) changes tack slightly, portraying a future that was perhaps less darker in its dystopian outlook than Neuromancer. Likewise, films have moved on. Films today seem to involve lots of holographic display technology and the “computer is everywhere” paradigm, as well as nuances towards the surveillance state.

So here are a few thoughts. Its not the most exhaustive list, but a list of what I think are the most influential in my exploration of this genre.

Vangelis – Bladerunner

Probably the archetypical cyberpunk movie with its dark, foreboding atmosphere and the claustrophobic tension of the city it portrays.

Ghost in the Shell – Movie

Ghost in the Shell is, I think, a classic animation that came out of Japan, portraying a world where the internet is all pervasive, cybernetics commonplace and asked what happened when soul and machine meld together to the point you can’t tell each other apart. I tend to think of it as a spiritual successor to the Bladerunner ideal of a dystopian future governed in part by the technology that has been created. The opening title sequence with the below haunting chant involves the lead character being “built” in the cyborg manufacturing plant.

Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex

This was a spin-off series from the original movie. They made two series each with its own story arc. Again it is compelling viewing exploring the world that was set up in the movie.

Wipeout 2097 – Fluke

A computer game that launched on the original Playstation. I remember it for the song Atom Bomb by Fluke which played repeatedly on MTV, which took the premise of the game (a high tech futuristic race) and melded it into the music video.

…According to research from Nokia Music into the listening habits of music fans in 15 countries between December 2008 and January 2010.

TOP 10 GLOBALLY DOWNLOADED MOVIE SOUNDTRACKS

1. Twilight (Original motion picture soundtrack: International Version)

2. AVATAR

3. Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds

4. Mamma Mia!

5. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Mexican version)**

6. Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

7. Alvin And The Chipmunks 2

8. Slumdog Millionaire

9. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Original motion picture soundtrack)

10. Watchmen

Notice how it occurred 3 times on the list?… but sadly it doesn’t qualify for the “Best Original Score” category according to the rules of the 82nd annual Academy Awards…

Leave a comment telling us your favourite film scores or soundtracks and we’ll give 1 lucky reader 50 tracks from the Nokia Music Store. Terms and Conditions

Competition is now closed!

From James Horner’s mysterious AVATAR score to the thrilling melodies of Sherlock Holmes or the eclectic mix of Nine, check out Nokia’s movie soundtrack selection

If you’re a fan of the music behind the latest movie releases Nokia Comes With Music is the place to download all the music you’ve ever wanted, for free, and to keep forever.

I watched Third World Cop last night, it’s a low-budget film following the story of  wayward cop Capone who returns to his hometown to crack a gang of arms smugglers - pretty banal stuff really. Also the film lacks a quality finish compared to mainstream flicks, despite this I really enjoyed the story; the difference between this movie and others with a similar story is that it’s set in the ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica.

I found out about the movie while reading about one of my current favourite artists Ninjaman (Desmond Ballentine). Someone had commented that Ninjaman played a character pretty indicative of himself in the film. I’m not sure about that but, he plays a small role as a rude-boy criminal which was really interesting to watch. In fact all of the characters in the film delighted me and I felt it painted a really vivid picture of Jamaican ghetto culture.

So… the film was quite entertaining and interesting but the hugely awesome surprise was it’s soundtrack, arranged by Sly & Robbie it includes songs from Beenie Man, Red Dragon, Buccaneer and Sly & Robbie themselves, it’s totally bumpin’ from start to finish.

If you’re a fan of Ragga, Dancehall or Reggae this film is well worth a watch and remains the number 1 grossing movie to come out of Jamaica to date. Yu waan check it out.

Third World Cop - The Soundtrack

Links:

Wikipedia: Ninjaman

Wikipedia: Sly & Robbie

IMDB for the movie

Sly & Robbie’s official page

Is there any point listening to music when you’re hungover?

Not just one too many shandies……I’m talking about a rockstar hangover that wipes your memory of the previous two months.

What you really need is the tiny mew of a blind kitten, slowly dying in a luke-warm bath of porridge,  rubbed gently against the inside of your skull.

What you hear however,  is a road worker’s growl of infinite length, accelerated by CERN and smashed into that pulpy mass you used to think with.

So where does that leave me?

Silence……

Muse frontman and virtual virtuoso Matt Bellamy was approached to Score the forthcoming epic Clash Of The Titans. Due in March this year already, I’m reluctant to believe there’s actually enough time left for them to do it with The Resistance tour schedule, never mind that I had the foolish notion to believe a Film Score develops during filming for mood and atmosphere instead of the after-though of post production.

It’s fair to say I’m pretty excited about this after Sam Worthington’s show stealing performance in Terminator Salvation, and if Matt and the boys have contributed… then I may just wet myself.

The Resistance and the entire Muse back-catalogue are available to download from The Nokia Music Store and is completely free to ‘Comes With Music’ subscribers.

Update!

Since the news only came to light this week I made the fatal faux pas of assuming that the approach happened recently, it would now seem that the band were approached a while back regarding this and that Craig Armstrong has already scored the film. What’s still unclear is whether Muse have contributed…  here’s hoping!

This week Neilsen SoundScan data reveals that Low by Flo Rida (featuring T-Pain) was the most downloaded song of the decade in the US. Wow! Of the decade! That’s really quite an achievement for a song that was the first single off the rapper’s debut album, Mail On Sunday.

I don’t know why our American friends went so nuts about this song, the only real reason I like it is because it reminds me of Tom Cruise as the brilliant Les Grossman, dancing to it during Tropic Thunder. Check it out:

Could its success all be down to that silly little scene? I strongly doubt it, but I’ll need to ask an American in the know for sure. I’m guessing instead it’s just down to the fact that they just like this mainstream hip-hop stuff. A lot.

But it’s given me food for thought on how a song featured in a movie with a silly dance can always stick in your mind. My personal favourites are:

1. Jon Heder in Napolean Dynamite: track Canned Heat by Jamiroquai. This dance routine at the end of the movie is so good I have actually tried to learn it, sober, in my living room, on more than five occasions. You’d think I might be embarrassed to admit that but sadly, I’m not. And now everytime I hear this song, which I previously didn’t think much of at all, all I wanna do is grab some snow boots and act like a complete geeky mong on the dancefloor.

2. John Travolta and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction: track You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry. Ooo lets go out on a fake date, ooo lets have a groovy dance and look all cool in front of everyone, ooo lets snort some heroin and OD like a skank. Not looking so cool now, are we Uma?

Actually, she really does look cool:

3. Tom Cruise (again! I know!) in Risky Business: track Old Time Rock & Roll by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band. Here he is looking all cute, and being all normal dancing around in his socks and shirt. There’s no science to this scene, even L Ron would have to accept that it is truly magical. Simply can not hear this song without picturing this scene. Check it out here.

Bloggy bonus

Now, while trawling the net to make my sure my tiny little brain hadn’t forgot to include anything AMAZING I stumbled upon this extraordinary dance scene from the 80s classic movie Mac & Me. The song isn’t memorable (in fact there’s a prize up for grabs for whoever can name it), but I simply had to share this with you dear reader as it is pure, unadulterated, cheesy, 80s goodness. In my view, any scene where some American football jocks dance in time for no apparent reason is worth a watch. Enjoy.