Three months ago, I realised I’d let the joy of discovering new music slip form my life. To fix this I started asking sort of randomly selected friends and connections to suggest an album I should listen to in the coming week. I posted about the first 11 selection on my Facebook page here.
This week I thought, why not post these as blog posts? So here we are.
Do you follow Room Rater on Twitter (@ratemyskyperoom)? If not, and you are on Twitter – you should. They amusingly rate people’s backdrops on Skype/Zoom/etc interviews – and give tips for improvement. They also suggested my album for the week … and their suggestion is an endorsement to this whole weekly album project I have going – because it was so unexpected. They suggested Music from The Thomas Crown Affair (1999). I don’t know why this was their pick. Nor do I want to know.
Now, firstly, I should say I have strong feelings about soundtracks and musical scores. I think they should first be experienced as the soundtrack or score within their movie or play. So, first up – I watched The Thomas Crown Affair. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before given I’ve wanted to have sex with Pierce Brosnan since I was too young to even really understand what that really meant. And, whatever else might be said about this film – Pierce looks fantastic.
It’s a funny sort of soundtrack – or I guess, typical of the time. There are a few songs and then several tracks from the score.
We begin with a deeply vanilla Sting cover of a song from the original Thomas Crown movie, ‘Windmills of Your Mind’. This is the sort of track that could make you forget just how good The Police were. I’ve since listened to the original – and Sting’s version is better than that one, but not as good as the Dusty Springfield version. They are all, however, vanilla. I mean, vanilla is an important and enjoyable flavour, and this track is … fine.
Then we get Nina Simone’s ‘Sinnerman’ – all ten glorious minutes of it. If this song hasn’t hit you, you should probably listen to it again. Wasis Diop’s ‘Everything (… is Never Quite Enough)’ is a soulful and groovy duet. We then slip down to the Caribbean with Carban la Ka Kratchie by George Fordant. And then we’re into the score – the main theme, repeated, in several tracks is a lilting piano melody that I quite like – and is perhaps best in ‘Black and White X 5’. There are also a couple of jazzy numbers you might hear in a fancy New York hotel bar. All these tracks are courtesy of Bill Conti.
I’ve nothing profound to say about this album … I enjoyed the week I spent with these tracks and I enjoyed watching the film. So, thanks Room Rater, for playing along.
This album is available on Apple Music, but not Spotify.