The Music From The Films Of Blake Lively Post.

Given that the production the yummy, leggy Blake is best known for is a TV show, perhaps a renaming of this series is in order. Anyway, not included on this... well... EP is anything from Accepted, Simon Says or Hick. (Or Savages, even though there is a soundtrack available - just no sound clips at the time of writing.) Also not included - "Carol Scolds Hal" from Green Lantern, because I wanted something a bit more uptempo after the previous tracks.

By the way, Blake Neely is a man. :)


1. Steps Of The Met (Gossip Girl, Theme from) - Transcenders (1:44)
2. Piano Suite (from The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants) - Cliff Eidelman (3:54)
3. Bridge At Night (from Elvis & Anabelle) - Blake Neely (3:04)
4. Bridget (from The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2) - Rachel Portman (3:19)
5. Charlestown (from The Town) - Harry Gregson-Williams and David Buckley (2:18)
6. Drone Dogfight (from Green Lantern) - James Newton Howard (3:18)
Hypothetical Bonus Track:
7. Savages … Force Of Nature (from Savages) - Adam Peters (3:13)

Still longer than the soundtrack album for The Lonely Guy, which is less than 20 minutes long in total! Coming up next, a woman who won't have that problem...

The Music From The Films Of Hayden Panettiere Post.

There are two things that I like; film soundtracks and attractive celebrity women. Finally, something that combines the two. Kicking off this series of posts is one for one of the two women this blog's named for - and since Cindy Crawford has hardly any screen scripted work to her name (and no related soundtracks, unless La-La Land has released Mark Mancina's Fair Game without announcing it), that means Hayden Panettiere.

Not included: songs licensed for inclusion in any of her films (or TV shows), although we'll make an exception for one artist. Also not included: David Newman's The Affair Of The Necklace because she only appears in the prologue as the young Hilary Swank (which is weird considering how they look now, but anyway), or any others - like Message In A Bottle - where she isn't a main character. (Exception: the track from Dinosaur, because it's too darn good.) I'm also not including anything from Marco Beltrami's Scream 4 (especially not "I Got It Right") because of the whole "stabbed and left for dead" thing... even though her character may not be gone, but anyway, it's not pleasant.

This hypothetical CD/download would, however, include among other tracks (and I apologise in advance for them not being embedded -  I did try) :

1. Dot's Rescue (from A Bug's Life) - Randy Newman (4:01)
2. The Egg Travels (from Dinosaur) - James Newton Howard (2:43)
3. Titans Spirit (from Remember The Titans) - Trevor Rabin (7:25)
4. My Hero Is You (from Tiger Cruise) - Hayden Panettiere (3:43)
5. Someone Like You (from The Dust Factory) - Hayden Panettiere and Watt White (3:43)
6. The Big Race (from Racing Stripes) - Mark Isham (7:20)
7. I Fly (from Ice Princess) - Hayden Panettiere (3:33)
8. Claire (from Heroes) - Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman (6:43)
9. Fireflies Blinking (from Fireflies In The Garden) - Javier Navarette (5:36)
10. Beth Cooper Suite (from I Love You, Beth Cooper) - Christophe Beck (4:42)
11. Requiem For Kate (from Alpha And Omega) - Chris Bacon (1:30)
12. I Can Do It Alone (from Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil) - Hayden Panettiere (3:28)

Next time, we're off to the Upper East Side of Manhattan's elite...

The Confessions Of A Shopaholic CD Post.

Things to do music-wise, one: Replace defective cassettes (so if anyone has any spare copies of Carl Davis' Napoleon on CD floating about...)

Things to do music-wise, two: Apologise to everyone who downloads. Having been led after Googling the now ex-Cheetah Girl Adrienne Bailon to the preview Amazon page for Confessions Of A Shopaholic's Hollywood CD, and been less than thrilled with the stuff I had to go through to get to the last track...

1. Accessory - Jordyn Taylor (3:04)
2. Fashion - Lady GaGa (2:49)
3. Blue Jeans - Jessie James (3:54)
4. Uncontrollable - Adrienne Bailon (3:28)
5. Calling You - Kat DeLuna (4:34)
6. Stuck With Each Other - Akon (3:18)
7. Unstoppable - Kat DeLuna (6:14)
8. Big Spender - Adrienne Bailon (5:40)
9. Bad Girl - The Pussycat Dolls (2:25)
10. Again - Natasha Bedingfield (3:55)
11. Takes Time To Love - Trey Songz (2:45)
12. Girls Just Want To Have Fun - Greg Laswell (2:35)
13. Don't Forget Me - Macy Gray (2:35)
14. Shopaholic Suite - James Newton Howard (4:40)

...I may just have to buy it separately. Wait, you can't? Sod. Ah well, it's amazing he's there anyway (the movie's from Jerry Bruckheimer)...

UPDATE: After seeing the trailer for the movie before both Vicky Cristina Barcelona and High School Musical 3: Senior Year, I may just go and see the thing as well. It made me laugh, and Isla Fisher is, well, you know...

The Your Licence Fee Supports Philistines Post.

When Peter Jackson's stunning redo of King Kong came out, an IMDb user (who liked the movie, mind) said that he/she wished that the movie could have included the theme song from the Rankin/Bass cartoon at the end. Presumably this wasn't done in the movie on the grounds of it being a stupid and out-of-place notion, although the show's theme song is actually pretty good.

But still not as stupid and out-of-place as this.

Thanks to BBC Radio 1's Rob da Bank, BBC Four viewers have the chance to listen to an alternative soundtrack for the classic 1933 film King Kong when it is shown on the channel over Christmas.
King Kong airs on BBC Four on Saturday 27 December at 11.30pm and viewers can press the Red button to hear Rob da Bank's personal choice of tracks to go alongside the film.
Rob has dug through his crates to put together a tracklisting of weird and wonderful gems from Sigur Ros, Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Black Sabbath and Portishead to The Ho'Op'I Brothers, Harry Connick Junior, Bon Iver, Laurie Anderson and Tunng.
The music for the opening and closing credits will be Hudson Mohawke's "Star Crackout" and Pixies' "Monkey Gone To Heaven" respectively.
The score will also be broadcast on the Rob da Bank and Friends show on Radio 1, Sunday 21 December, from 2.00 to 4.00am.

The complete press release and tracklisting can be found here. The point of chucking a whole load of anachronistic material onto a movie which already has a perfectly fine score cannot be found anywhere - writing music to accompany silent movies is one thing, but this smacks of clever-clever arrogance. Or thickness.

Rumours that Max Steiner is digging his way out of his grave with murder in mind are unconfirmed at press time - I nearly took Edith Bowman off staff for suggesting that this (Mr. Bank's "rescoring," not Max Steiner coming back to life) is a good idea... at least when James Newton Howard replaced Howard Shore's music Jackson kept Shore's cameo in the movie. He's the bloke conducting the pit orchestra in New York, if you were wondering.

Anyway, YouTube seems to lack videos featuring Steiner's original music but luckily Radio 1 DJs have been kept far away from the other two versions. So here is SoundtrackGeek's preview video of John Barry's score from the version with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange:




And one of my favourite cues from Howard's replacement score for the newest one, "Tooth And Claw":