Howard Who?

(edit: THE LINKS TO THE MP3s ARE NOW OPERATIONAL.)

Yoko Kanno is one of those composers who I call genre-busters. They can defy all laws of physics in their assimilation of various musical styles, imbuing each one with high quality craftsmanship and style. The key to composers of this bent is to find projects that allow them the ability to be a musical chameleon.

And find a project she did with the great series Cowboy Bebop. Reuniting with Macross Plus director Shinichiro Watanabe, Kanno is allowed wide berth to write in style ranging from:

Romantic opera

Ave Maria (mp3) - Yoko Kanno

Steve Reich (edit - i.e. minimalism)

Powder (mp3) - Yoko Kanno

U2/Bon Jovi Rock

Call Me (mp3) - Yoko Kanno

Bebop jazz (of course)

Rush (mp3) - Yoko Kanno

Buy

And she covers many more genres befitting a show that referenced film noir, Stanley Kubrick, Bruce Lee, and pretty much everything else cool you can think of. The Cowboy Bebop movie is also one of the more brilliant anime movies. Watanabe followed this up with his great series Samurai Champloo which has been on Cartoon Network’s adult swim with its oddball mix of Edo-era Japan and hip hop. I suppose he’s the genre-buster of anime directors. Delightfully weird and cool, even if not as great as Cowboy Bebop.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Classical Music, Film Music, Pop Music, TV. 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.