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":

The You Can't Have Your Cake And Edith Too Post.

Yes, Quantum Of Solace is a great name for a story but not so good for a movie. True, it's difficult to see how you can get it into a song title (so they probably won't - as demonstrated by On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy and Casino Royale). And indeed, a humourous takeoff of 007 songs is not a bad idea. (As opposed to keeping on mentioning Amy Winehouse each time the "Who'll sing the next theme?" question is brought up.)

None of which excuses Edith Bowman, James King and Alison Clarkson (aka Betty Boo) for the fact that their parody Bond song is pretty poor, both as a song in itself and because it's not very funny (Weird Al Yankovic's title song from Spy Hard and the "Scorpio" number at the end of The Simpsons' "You Only Move Twice" both effortlessly kill this one). But I still heart Edith, and judge for yourself.

And it's still better than the last few real James Bond songs anyway.

The Friday Night Post.

Feltz: Amy Winehouse covering Sam Cooke's (NOT Johnny Nash's) "Cupid" for Radio 1's 40th anniversary. And murdering it in the process... great if I needed to throw up, but otherwise doesn't this contravene human rights laws?

Cindy: Getting a letter from Abbey National with no withdrawal charges for once!

YES!

And many thanks to Louise Redknapp (the anti-Victoria), on behalf of MuffinMan. :)

The Pinch And Punch Post.

Here's Hayden leaving Radio One yesterday (and as you can see, justifying the existence of webcams). If I'd known I'd have taken yesterday off as well as Monday! Anyway, this rumour was inevitable and chord-striking for the Paire worshippers...

If I could get one of these uploaded, believe me I would. And as fantabulous as Cindy is, can we stop the "I don't like 20-year-olds, I'd rather have a MILF" talk from some posters on the likes of The Superficial? 18-year-old Hayden and 41-year-old Cindy both work for me, and others.