Music To Level Up To
For Scott Pilgrim, the movie, music is sort of a world building tool. Something to accentuate the awesomeness of it all, make it more believable, or simply give some nice setpieces for the music battles.
The result is a mostly out-of-left field album that combines the greatness of Metric, the eclecticism of Broken Social Scene, and of course Beck as the musical voice of the supposedly terrible band. Throughout the movie they make a point of saying that Sex Bob-omb is actually pretty terrible. But with Beck at the helm, they actually sound pretty good. Add to that the various comedic elements of some of the tracks, the great indie tunes written by other bands for the film and you have yourself an excellent original portion of the album that reflects some great music scenes. From Indie to Alternative, to Canadian Rock. If you're a fan of any of these genres, then you should greatly enjoy this album.
The only real problem I have with the album is the song not created for the movie. They never felt especially right in the film, and outside of it, for me at least, it doesn't really hold any special meaning or emotion, or even purpose. Think a standard romantic comedy soundtrack but with more obscure, or classic songs to the genre. You know what I mean? They're just a sound placeholder, and hold no real connection to the images on screen. I mean, I totally forgot that The Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb" was actually in the film. This a fact that felt apparent to me listening to them stuffed in-between the original works. And the fact that they're by far the longest songs on the soundtrack makes it all the more apparent. All of this with the possible exception of Beachwood Sparks.
Overall, if you're a fan of the movie, then you will most likely love this album. If you're a fan of any of the musical scenes cover here, then you should certainly give this a listen. If you're not a fan of the movie, or the various musical scenes involved, you're likely to think about this what you thought of the movie: Pretensions Hipster Garbage. You'd be wrong of course, but to each his own. This is a solid compilation of music for a great movie that uses music truly as an asset to the film and its emotions.
4/5 Stars
