Pitchfork
October 26, 2009
Link
5.4
Sensitive young men who avoid sunlight and the gloomy misfit young women who adore them: For all the gasps that greeted Twilight author Stephanie Meyer's recent embrace of indie rock, the parallels between the two are obvious enough. On different scales, each has seen its financial fortunes rise the past few years as well. The music industry's troubles are widely known, but indie's stock continues to climb. Phoenix and Animal Collective are two of the year's breakout bands. Jay-Z endorsed Grizzly Bear. Sonic Youth went on "Gossip Girl". As reverse indicators of indie rock's increasing popularity, there's the backlash: Slate recently slamming NPR and praising Creed, or recent underground interest in commercial dead ends like lo-fi and glo-fi.
Hollywood has hit up Brooklyn before. New Moon's soundtrack is melancholy and nocturnal, as befits the book where Edward leaves protagonist Bella for her own good, but it repeats some mistakes from past indie OST close-ups. Yeah, of course, indie rock is "just" pop music, but the companion CDs to Garden State, and TV shows such as "The O.C.", "Gossip Girl", and "Grey's Anatomy" (all at one time helmed by New Moon music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas) over-emphasized indie's adult-contemporary streak. By contrast, the Slumdog Millionaire, I'm Not There, and Sofia Coppola film soundtracks work partly because they share the same restless disregard for boundaries that indie listeners-- ideally, at least-- aspire toward.
Despite being the soundtrack to a young adult drama, the New Moon album alas leans toward the adult contemporary. It's packed with indie-friendly royalty, but hardly anybody here sounds anything better than pleasant. As usual, Thom Yorke fares best: The jittery synth-rock of the Radiohead frontman's "Hearing Damage" shows more of the heart he moved to his sleeve this year on gorgeous cover "All for the Best", and then an atmospheric outro steals it away again. Grizzly Bear's "Slow Life", with Beach House singer Victoria Legrand, and Bon Iver's "Roslyn", with St. Vincent-- both welcome collaborations on paper-- unfortunately fade into ethereal acoustic wallpaper: vaguely pretty, too unremarkable to have noteworthy flaws.
In the battle of the potential radio anthems, Death Cab for Cutie's chiming rocker "Meet Me on the Equinox", with its propulsive Narrow Stairs bass and hugely obvious "everything ends" chorus, beats the nonsensical baroque-pop of the Killers' "A White Demon Love Song". Lykke Li's feedback-streaked piano ballad "Possibility" is a relative bright spot, but like the rest of the tracks here, it pales in comparison to the work on her own records.
Elsewhere, Editors could finally rid themselves of Interpol comparisons with oppressively maudlin cabaret crooner "No Sound But the Wind", but you'll only wish there were no sound. A New Moon remix of Muse's histrionic "I Belong to You" mercifully cuts the pain of the six-minute album version in half, with few other apparent improvements. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's smoky acoustic lament "Done All Wrong" is probably too hard on itself. The few uptempo tracks here-- the chord-crunching "Monsters", by former Longwave frontman Steve Schiltz's Hurricane Bells, or the wobbly Saddle Creek-ishness of L.A. band Sea Wolf's "The Violet Hour"-- are as overly familiar as they are toe-tapping.
The New Moon OST has all the touchstones of what is considered, by many who consider themselves cognoscenti, "good" music-- from Yorke to Grizzly Bear to the more populist Death Cab, Killers, and Muse-- but it uses its tastefulness to solidify the borders of what is acceptable, not to broaden them. Even New Moon's most adventurous musicians rarely do anything catchy, startling, or moving enough here not to blend into mostly forgettable gothic-romance slurry. Strange as it may seem, not blending in is what some people want. Catchy is what pretty much everybody wants. So indie boys and vampires may have in common their unhealthy pallor, their emotional sensitivity, and their romantic clumsiness, but they're not the same, after all. Believe it or not: Indie kids have souls.
Hollywood has hit up Brooklyn before. New Moon's soundtrack is melancholy and nocturnal, as befits the book where Edward leaves protagonist Bella for her own good, but it repeats some mistakes from past indie OST close-ups. Yeah, of course, indie rock is "just" pop music, but the companion CDs to Garden State, and TV shows such as "The O.C.", "Gossip Girl", and "Grey's Anatomy" (all at one time helmed by New Moon music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas) over-emphasized indie's adult-contemporary streak. By contrast, the Slumdog Millionaire, I'm Not There, and Sofia Coppola film soundtracks work partly because they share the same restless disregard for boundaries that indie listeners-- ideally, at least-- aspire toward.
Despite being the soundtrack to a young adult drama, the New Moon album alas leans toward the adult contemporary. It's packed with indie-friendly royalty, but hardly anybody here sounds anything better than pleasant. As usual, Thom Yorke fares best: The jittery synth-rock of the Radiohead frontman's "Hearing Damage" shows more of the heart he moved to his sleeve this year on gorgeous cover "All for the Best", and then an atmospheric outro steals it away again. Grizzly Bear's "Slow Life", with Beach House singer Victoria Legrand, and Bon Iver's "Roslyn", with St. Vincent-- both welcome collaborations on paper-- unfortunately fade into ethereal acoustic wallpaper: vaguely pretty, too unremarkable to have noteworthy flaws.
In the battle of the potential radio anthems, Death Cab for Cutie's chiming rocker "Meet Me on the Equinox", with its propulsive Narrow Stairs bass and hugely obvious "everything ends" chorus, beats the nonsensical baroque-pop of the Killers' "A White Demon Love Song". Lykke Li's feedback-streaked piano ballad "Possibility" is a relative bright spot, but like the rest of the tracks here, it pales in comparison to the work on her own records.
Elsewhere, Editors could finally rid themselves of Interpol comparisons with oppressively maudlin cabaret crooner "No Sound But the Wind", but you'll only wish there were no sound. A New Moon remix of Muse's histrionic "I Belong to You" mercifully cuts the pain of the six-minute album version in half, with few other apparent improvements. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's smoky acoustic lament "Done All Wrong" is probably too hard on itself. The few uptempo tracks here-- the chord-crunching "Monsters", by former Longwave frontman Steve Schiltz's Hurricane Bells, or the wobbly Saddle Creek-ishness of L.A. band Sea Wolf's "The Violet Hour"-- are as overly familiar as they are toe-tapping.
The New Moon OST has all the touchstones of what is considered, by many who consider themselves cognoscenti, "good" music-- from Yorke to Grizzly Bear to the more populist Death Cab, Killers, and Muse-- but it uses its tastefulness to solidify the borders of what is acceptable, not to broaden them. Even New Moon's most adventurous musicians rarely do anything catchy, startling, or moving enough here not to blend into mostly forgettable gothic-romance slurry. Strange as it may seem, not blending in is what some people want. Catchy is what pretty much everybody wants. So indie boys and vampires may have in common their unhealthy pallor, their emotional sensitivity, and their romantic clumsiness, but they're not the same, after all. Believe it or not: Indie kids have souls.
