Do you remember this Emilio Estevez/Dennis Leary star vehicle? No? You aren't missing anything. It's a completely forgettable movie where some friends take a wrong turn and then face bad guys until the final confrontation where the good guys win. Cuba Gooding Jr co-stars and there's a guy on the poster who isn't billed with the others (it's Stephen Dorff). You can watch this entire movie on youtube if you are so inclined.
The soundtrack has a great marketing gimmick, take a bunch of metal and rock acts then pair them up with rappers. Run D.M.C. had a big hit with Aerosmith in 'Walk this Way' in 1986 so it was proven to work. Somehow the marketers found some game artists to sell their wares and most of the big acts of the early nineties came along.This album hasn't got very distinctive lyrics or anything, it is all style.
Playlist :
01. Just Another Victim - Helmet & House Of Pain
02. Fallin - Teenage Fanclub & De La Soul
03. Me, Myself & My Microphone - Living Colour & Run D.M.C.
04. Judgment Night - Biohazard & Onyx
05. Disorder - Slayer & Ice-T
06. Another Body Murdered - Faith No More & Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.
07. I Love You Mary Jane - Sonic Youth & Cypress Hill
08. Freak Momma - Mudhoney & Sir Mix-A-Lot
09. Missing Link - Dinosaur Jr & Del The Funky Homosapien
10. Come And Die - Therapy? & Fatal
11. Real Thing - Pearl Jam & Cypress Hill
Marketing is one thing but having a good product is another. This is a good product and showed that the mix of these two musics was not only workable but in some cases...logical. The fusion of rap and rock was a long way from being popular when this music was made and wasn't yet associated with privileged suburban white youth and the huge amount of disposable rap-metal acts that came along in the late 1990's. Angry subject matter for no reason can sell and that is what this album is about. This soundtrack is about a sound and a mood. A mood where you grimace and swear a lot.
Most of this album takes rap acts and makes the music behind much more aggressive and for what it's worth, it works. 'Me, Myself and My Microphone' has Run D.M.C. working with a good guitarist instead of a sampled one and it works well. Biohazard and Onyx have similar shout-along styles in their main careers so their effort has a mean groove. Ice-T had worked with a metal band called Bodycount before who weren't very technically gifted and lacked punch but here he works with the kicking Slayer for a very direct angry and topical workout. Faith No More added their weirdness to a simple hardcore track and what comes out is the most distinctive song on the record. Sir-Mix-a-Lot has a charming sex-rap-rock with Mudhoney. Del tha Funky Homosapien twists his tongue around a riff from Dinosaur Jr. The song 'Fallin' has a complete 180 degree turn from the first song on the album but is a toe tapper that gives a little self-reflection from De La Soul.
Some of these songs have problems with their style, the opener 'Just Another Victim' is two songs that try to pretend they are one but each side is not bad, the whole is just a bit awkward. 'I Love you Mary Jane' is really just a Cypress Hill song with one of the Sonic Youth sampled saying 'She come bye to get me high' over and over...but that is what most people would listen to Cypress Hill for so this isn't such a bad thing. 'Come and Die' is more forgettable than the film and 'Real Thing' is merely okay but arrives too late for the party.
This soundtrack does trump the film and showed how marketable rap metal was. Check it out below.
No comments:
Post a Comment