Film and music can often be the best of friends or each other’s worst enemies. Soundtracks for films can sometimes overshadow the film itself or be so bad as to be non-existent.
Recently we have seen the success of marriage between film and music with teen vampire flick Twilight. The soundtrack contained bands such as Muse and Paramore, the latter of whom gained a whole other generation of fans to buy their album Riot! Wes Anderson on the other hand, uses a mixture of old British rock music in his soundtracks and recent rom-com 500 Days of Summer used The Smiths as a focal point in the film itself, sparking romance over the doom-and-gloom of ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’.
But that’s not to say traditional scores aren’t just as good. John Williams is just one of the masters of the more eloquent soundtrack (Star Wars and Jaws being some of his best known work), while Danny Elfman creates both scores and original songs for television and film.
Now let’s take Iron Man 2, the sequel to the surprisingly good Marvel adaptation starring Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson. If you’ve been in a record store or even your local supermarket this week you will have seen the AC/DC Iron Man 2 Soundtrack. The only problem is…it isn’t really a soundtrack. Recent trends in soundtracks show more and more films creating what can only be described as a “compilation” of modern songs. However, this isn’t the case here, it’s all AC/DC. Not a bad thing of course, but the track list reads more like a Greatest Hits for Angus Young and the boys.
There is nothing “Iron Man” about this record, the songs will only be crammed into the film after the success of ‘Back In Black’ into the first film. The songs span the bands long history but don’t contain anything newly written for the film; only the coincidentally titled ‘War Machine’.
There is no way to know if an entire soundtrack of AC/DC is a good or bad thing at this moment in time (the film is due April 30th) but it does seem a little much doesn’t it? Maybe it’s just a way for a band to get around putting out a “best of” or “Greatest Hits”. Certainly it would make a good starting point for anyone looking to get into the band.
For the time being we have to keep our fingers crossed that Iron Man 2 won’t over do the boom and blast, and avoid being one long rock ’n’ roll video. Just for the record, I’m a fan of both Iron Man and AC/DC, but I was a little worried when this album appeared in ASDA. People sometimes say that: “less is more”, but clearly director (and AC/DC fan) Jon Favreau is going with: “MORE is MORE!”
And let’s not forget, this maximises profit for both the film and the band! Hurrah! …or not?
Image courtesy of superrobotmayhem.com
