Thursday, February 01, 2007

November 28, 2005

The Best Of Both Worlds aka A Tale of Two Soundtracks

So I am a fan of this short lived TV show called Firefly, I may have mentioned this once or twice. You know Firefly don't you? The television predecessor to the movie Serenity a movie I enjoyed, again I may have mentioned this.

So, I totally forgot to mention on here the soundtrack situation for both movie and show. So here is the deal, I finally got them both

First impressions. Lets start with the Soundtrack for Serenity The Motion Picture (as it was released first)
23 track
49 minutes and 9 seconds or so worth of music in total
3 minutes 56 seconds for the longest track.

So my first thought was woah hold on! I'm pretty darn sure the movie was just about two hours long, they couldn't scrounge up more then 50 minutes worth of music? Seriously it seems like a total waste of space to me to leave that much emptiness on a disc, throw in some movie quotes or something if you have to just give me something fun to listen to. A little bang for my buck you know?

So already we were off on the wrong foot.

Onto the actual music. What I noticed while listening to the soundtrack was how it really did remind me of watching the movie. When I saw the movie I hadn't actually thought I had payed attention to the music, but it's such a subtle thing that it does creep into your mind, which is good. I realized that as a movie soundtrack this did the job pretty well. However, as a stand alone CD I don't think this soundtrack has all that much appeal. Sure the music is decent, but it's not a melodic type thing, it has more of an emotional zing to it which if you don't have the context of the movie you will probably miss much of what you are meant to feel. The reaver related tracks however if you Do have the context really rock. Again if they would have used the free space on the disc to mix in some movie dialog to help set the feel for the tracks it might have gone a long way in making it better.

Bottom line. I'm glad I have it, but only because I collect Firefly and Serenity related items, and I am a huge fan of the series. If I were not I don't think there would be much here.

next up The Original Television Soundtrack for Firefly.
25 tracks
1 hour and 30 seconds or so of music
3 minutes 27 seconds for the longest track.

Again why so short? You can't tell me that out of 14 episodes of hour long TV that there wasn't at least 80 minutes worth of music you could have pulled. Or if not different tunes how about extended versions of some of these? I don't know, maybe I expect to much.

So the music of Firefly is one of the things about the show that I just absolutely fell in love with. Such a beautiful mixture of genres and cultures and styles, done in such a way that it just totally works. Yes much like the movie soundtrack the music on this disc also can remind you of the episode or scenes that it is representing. However the difference with these tracks is huge, that being you do not have to have seen the show in order to enjoy this music. Yep thats right I said it, the Firefly soundtrack I believe can stand on it's own as a very nice little score of music. Oh sure, some the only song with lyrics on the disc (The Ballad of Serenity) won't appeal to everyone, but most of the other stuff is very melodic, soothing at times, and most importantly good.

I do have some gripes on this one though. Why can't the music be in order from episode to episode on the CD? Maybe it is just me but I like things linear. I like when A leads to B leads to C leads to D. It's not a big complaint, but it's there. Also again, some of the tracks just seemed a bit short. I understand they were created for a television show which of course meant they needed to work in short doses, but a little reworking and you could have had some very very nice full pieces of musical awesomeness.

For the record my favorite track on either disc is from the TV soundtrack, song 23: Rivers Dance. Such a fun energetic tune, it totally works. Although I gotta be honest track number 16 nearly won simply on it's title alone "Book's hair/Ready for Battle" I mean come on Book's Hair! Ok that may be one of those jokes you have to be a fan of the show to get. But seriously you should be a fan of the show....

Bottom line on this one, Very very good in my opinion, worth the buy even if I wasn't a fan of the show (which I am)

P.S. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you all that I am still hoping for a free something or the other as you can see by the column to the right here. I also would like to point out that I found out while checking status the other day that the Free iPod offer has been bumped up to a video iPod or a $250 iTunes gift certificate. Come on, I only need 2 more completions and I can shut up about that particular offer!!! You do want me to shut up don't you? Of course you do, I hear it all the time, people are constantly asking me to shut up. My silence is on high demand. I must be popular.

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