Howard Who?

Well this post could go on and on (but I won’t and I even promise you two musical examples if you read on!). But I find the dialogue between the pop music world and the classical music world rather compelling. There are many cases of each genre co-opting the sound or melodies of the other. Here is a list from wikipedia.

 But the one world where these two collide more frequently is the world of film music. With the introduction of pop composers to the film world, classical composers have had a run for their money. Of course John Williams will never write an Elton John song or Elton John write a symphonic John Williams score. But there are composers that are making themselves equally adept at evoking classical and pop music at the same time.

 Now for my examples. Jon Brion is one of the current badasses in music. He’s scored films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Punch-Drunk Love, produced records by Fiona Apple and Kanye West, and has a mean solo live act at the Largo in Los Angeles. But he has an uncanny ability to use instruments (he’s a keyboardist, drummer, bassist, guitarist, singer…if that indicates his virtuosity). This link is a piece he did that scores a restaurant scene in I Heart Huckabees. It’s also a cover of a song from the same soundtrack. For my money, the quality of it sounds pretty close to Schubert, etc. It’s definitely a step up from Stevie Wonder’s weird use of a synthetic string quartet in Village Ghetto Wonderland.

 The second example is from a film as well, where Philip Glass does a variation on his theme in the form of a two piece rock band. The violin that jumps in perhaps is too classical for some of you, but it definitely is a fun reinterpretation of Glass’ signature style. For the record, the man has written symphonies based on the works of David Bowie and Brian Eno and has written scores for such films as The Truman Show (mostly taken from pre-existing works), The Hours, and Kundun. His style is pretty easily recognizable and accessible, and it’s cool to see him have fun with this track in the Paul Schrader film Mishima.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 29th, 2006 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Classical Music, Film Music, Pop Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.