CD REVIEW: Going the Distance Soundtrack
I wanted this soundtrack for one reason only – to check out an acoustic version of The Airborne Toxic Event’s new song, “Half of Something Else.”
Forget “check out,” TATE’s music at its best hovers over you, giving butterfly kisses to your ears and enveloping you in a warmth for which people spend their whole lives searching. “Half…” is no exception, with violin at its most mournful, single-note piano fading in and then Mikel Jolett’s great modulated voice peeks its head around the door, sheepish smile fixed and waves a silent hello.
Apparently it plays over the closing credits of the film as everyone troops out. The song’s sadness seems to indicate there’s going to be emotional strings heartily pulled throughout the Drew Barrymore-fronted movie.
“Going The Distance” releases Sept. 3. Hard to believe it’s going to be a box office smash with Justin Long – Apple vs. Mac short-statured, metrosexual – in a starring romantic comedy role. It might be a case of more thought being put into the soundtrack than the story of the film.
With a couple of exceptions, the tracks, generally, have a slow-tempo indie spirit. The Boxer Rebellion leads the way, offering new (“If You Run” – jangly, muted, no new TBR ground broken) and old (Evacutate and Spitting Fire off 2009′s Union). They also show up playing in the movie.
Lead-off track “Either Way” from The Generationals is a 50s-tinged infectious tune, wolf whistles, car metaphors and male-female harmonizing included. It’s debut-new to the world on this soundtrack. An added synth zest gives it an 80s revival feel that The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” echoes three songs later (pre-echoes?). On the strength of this song alone – if you haven’t already heard “When They Fight They Fight” – these New Orleans guys are worth finding out more about. Helpfully, you can stream their new album, Con Law.
The soundtrack is a mixture of sadness (“Cold Fame” by Band of Skulls, “Here Comes A Regular” by The Replacements) and pep (“The Reeling” the best song off Passion Pit’s Manners, the humorously sung “Hey Na Na” by Katie Herzig). In fact, a lot of the bands here are quirky and hard to pigeonhole. It may be a stretch but that definition also applies to the movie’s star, Drew Barrymore. Coincidentally perhaps, “Learnalilgivinanlovin” was also on the soundtrack to the Barrymore-produced Roller-derby romantic comedy / female empowering, “Whip It.”
It’s always fascinating to listen to a soundtrack both before and after seeing a movie. True because some songs may appear for 20 seconds, and the song order doesn’t correspond to when they are heard in the movie. This soundtrack, with bonus tracks, clocks in at 80 minutes, just slightly less than the 97-minute movie, which isn’t a musical but might be better if it was by all accounts. As you can with a carefully crafted trailer, you can get a totally wrong impression yet you cannot stop putting together the missing pieces.
Song List
Either Way – The Generationals (new track)
Places – Georgie James
Hey, Na Na – Katie Herzig
In Transit – Albert Hammond Jr.
Just Like Heaven -The Cure
Don’t Get Me Wrong – The Pretenders
Spitting Fire – The Boxer Rebellion
Could We – Cat Power
Cold Fame – Band of Skulls
Prizefighter – Eels
The Reeling (Groove Police Remix) – The Passion Pit
Harold T. Wilkens, or How to Wait for a Very Long Time – Fanfarlo
Here Comes A Regular – The Replacements
Learnalilgivinanlovin – Gotye
Half of Something Else – The Airborne Toxic Event (New track)
Hot Child In the City – Nick Gilder
If You Run – The Boxer Rebellion (New track)
40 Day Dream – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes
Miss Me – Joe Purdy
Evacuate – The Boxer Rebellion
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Comments
I wondered where I'd seen that Long kid before.
Nice review! Any soundtrack that features Band of Skulls automatically doesn't suck